Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Joutei
by 2percent
Summary: "You think it's so easy. Just flip on a switch, everyone's either white or black, and we all play a little game of good guys and bad guys. But what makes you sure who's who? Who's a hero, who isn't? Who am I?" "...Let's find out." A world awaits.
1. Prologue

A figure stirred.

His first sensation was the slight breeze in the air, bringing an almost imperceptible chill. Next was the feel of rough, knotty bark against the back of his head and coarse dirt beneath his back. He opened eyes slowly to see a thick canopy of leaves above him. No light was permitted through the swaying green blanket, but it seemed to be either dawn or late evening, judging by the dim sunlight streaming at a sharp angle out of the tree's reach.

With a soft groan, he pushed himself up into a sitting position, blinking drearily in his post-slumber stupor. The strangeness of the situation floated into his fuzzy consciousness like a stream of bubbles in water. _Odd. What exactly am I doing in a forest?_ He glanced at the root where his head had previously lain, rubbing his head with a paw. _And how did I fall asleep here? Not exactly a prime napping spot. _He slowly got to his feet. _Might as well figure out… I… have… paws…_

…

He was also apparently a buizel.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?"

* * *

Welcome to the world of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon.

Ages ago, a catastrophe shook the world to its very core, tearing at the very strands of reality and bringing all of civilization to its knees.

Time has passed. The world has steadily recovered from the apocalypse; tribes, empires, nations rising to fill in the voids created. Built on the ruins of the dead civilizations, the new flourished. Not as civilizations of humans, but of pokémon.

* * *

"Oh dear."

A lombre paced nervously around a covered wagon.

"Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear," he muttered, wringing his hands continuously, fearfully glancing at the towering statuesque trees that washed their surroundings away in deep shadows that contrasted sharply with the golden sunlight sweeping out from under a thick bank of clouds. A rhyhorn harnessed to the wagon ignored him, lying still for the most part except to bend down to sniff and nibble at the sparse blades of grass.

* * *

The pokémon were the ones to pick up the reins of the world, having somehow gaining the full measure of the gifts of Uxie, Azelf, and Mespirit like the humans have. With their newfound intelligence, they took the task of repairing the world into their own hands (, paws, appendages), ruling themselves, no longer bound by the actions of humans. They were now their own masters.

Not all of them have actually advanced in this manner. Many still exist in the wilderness as simple beasts, no brighter than the majority that existed before the cataclysm, to the point that civilized pokémon can't recognize any semblance of language from them. Some of these have actually become domesticated – or tamed, as they are called – living as beasts of burden, trained battlers, or even pets. It seems that they aren't wholly devoid of the three gifts, as they have shown themselves to be capable of learning and over time, joining the ranks of society.

* * *

"Oh dear, oh dear," he said again. The dull purple cloak he wore rustled as he turned around to continue his pacing. "Oh dear oh dear oh dear oh–"

"Shut up! We're trying to work here!" a voice from the other side of the wagon shouted. The rhyhorn's eyes lazily glanced over to the source for a brief moment.

The lombre jumped, and quickly turned to the source of the outburst. "'Trying to work here'? 'Trying to work here'?" he repeated after moving into the sunlit side of the wagon the others were on. "Your job is to escort me and my cargo safely to Jigsaw! And now look where we are! On the edge of a mystery dungeon!" he shouted, gesturing to the dark, encircling trees.

A forest of tall, massive trees with spreading branches and myriads of needle-leaves; trees of gray and black rather than green, an eerie lifelessness set against the burning sky of sunset.

Trees made of noting but solid stone.

* * *

Despite their perseverance, the recovering civilizations are threatened by the phenomena known as mystery dungeons.

The cause of the cataclysm remains a mystery, assumed to be only known by the gods themselves, but the effects of it today are immediate and inescapable. The land is scarred with pools of chaos that spilled from the shattered fragments of reality left behind. Like massive, intangible glaciers, the chaos slowly worms across the world, spanning between settlements and plaguing travelers.

It's not quite as horrifying as it initially sounds. The chaos itself is usually extremely diluted. The most anyone would notice of it would an occasional creek that flows upstream, or one's tendency to easily walk in circles if one was not on a marked pathway. Furthermore, this chaos will stop wherever one sets down and makes a home, a village, a city. However, knots of much more obvious – much more dangerous – chaotic energy may form. 

These are mystery dungeons. Places where the very fabric of reality just isn't. It unravels into a system where order breaks down and partially succumbs to the chaos. Trees grown out of stone, active volcanoes frozen over, bottomless ravines, waterfalls climbing out of the sea… They are dangerous – in many ways. They are seemingly malevolent, ever-shifting mazes that snatch at any prey they can get and dooms them to wander hopelessly. If the victim is fortunate, this will be all that happens. If the victim is not so fortunate, the chaos will break into their minds, clawing at their sanity, until they become a nothing more than a drone of the chaos. Mystery dungeons are an omnipresent terror, but there exists a defense.

* * *

"And whose fault is that?" another one of them dryly asked. There were several of them gathered around a map and a compass. The ones nearest the wagon were casually leaning back against it. (Casually! Didn't they have any idea what situation they were in?) In the previous town, the lombre had been fortunate enough to stumble on a troupe of them who were travelling in his direction anyways and offered a very cheap price for such a large escort. Of course, he wasn't feeling fortunate at the moment.

"'And whose fault is that?' Yours of course! You are the guides here, aren't you?" he said as he moved in front of the group, so that he casted a shadow onto them.

One of them, a mawile began to mutter something in a foreign babble to the one beside her. The cloaked monferno, looking rather sheepish (he ought to be, he was the one who told the lombre to shut up), chuckled at her words.

"That's hardly a fair argument," another piped up from right by the map. "You kept whining at us about 'wasting time' and 'the profits were wasting' and pretty much forced us to cut the shortest path around as possible."

"Yes, well…"

"We did recommend you play this round safe and stick to the marked path. It's not smart to bet against our advice," a sableye said.

"Well, that…"

"They're right, you know."

"Don't blame us."

"_Baka."_

"Yup."

"Not our fault."

"The sunset is pretty."

At the non-sequitur comment, all the heads jerked to the drifloon floating above them. He didn't respond to this or add anything at all for a while, so they turned back to looking at the lombre.

He sighed unhappily and cursed his dependency on explorers.

* * *

Sometimes, pokémon are somehow "touched" by the chaos of mystery dungeons, making them more or less immune, or at least resistant to their confounding effects. The cause of this condition is completely unknown: some have had it since birth, others find it activating while they're trapped in a mystery dungeon, or even after multiple such trips with no sign of it beforehand.

Regardless, the touched are capable of finding their way wherever they are in any mystery dungeon and are safe from the threat of becoming trapped or corrupted. Some wielders of this talent only use it for their own ends; they commit whatever crimes and thefts they please and flee into mystery dungeons, free from any sort of retribution by authorities.

Others will use their touch for generally more noble purposes. They form crews that will act as peacekeepers of the lands. They will take the jobs that no one else can perform and fulfill them. From guiding merchants through the chaotic fields to hunting down the more dangerous denizens of mystery dungeons, from capturing elusive rouges to rescuing lost victims within the dungeons. These guardians, known as explorers, do what they can to serve, to mend, to protect the world they live in.

* * *

"Well, regardless of whom to blame," the larvitar, an odd paper tag over his right eye, suddenly said, standing up and rolling up the map that he had laid out, "We should get moving. The longer we remain in the mystery dungeon, the greater our risk of getting caught by the rule of six. I'm surprised we haven't felt it yet."

"I cannot agree more," the kirlia said, adjusting the denim jacket he was wearing.  
"Now with haste, before descends  
The glinting curtain of day's end,  
We travel forth, sunrays beside,  
The golden beacon be our guide," he proclaimed dramatically, pointing to the sunset.

"Came up with that on the spot, did you?" the larvitar muttered, smoothly shouldering the humongous backpack he had been carrying.

"I did, in fact," the kirlia said in a terse reply, offended.

"Well, I liked it," a young dratini told him.

"Ah, what a blessing it is for one to appreciate the artistry of words–"

"Wait a minute!" the lombre cried out, partially to keep the kirlia from talking anymore. "We're heading to the sun? That's in the west! We're in the northeast edge of the mystery dungeon, aren't we? It's common sense that we should be moving away from the sunset, isn't it?"

"Didn't we tell you already?" the sableye grinned at him. "Try not to bet against us. Not even for such a thing as common sense."

The lombre began to reply, but suddenly, the rhyhorn let out a startled cry from in front of the wagon, rattling its contents.

"Huh?"

A loud crash came from one of the trees surrounding the wagon. With audible cracks and a low grumble, one of stone trees began to tilt, lean, and fall ponderously towards the wagon.

* * *

Of course, the chaos alone is not the only threat presented by mystery dungeons.

The dungeons are inhabited by pokémon that are even more devoid of the three gifts than natural wild pokémon. These ferals, as they are known, are mere constructs of the mystery dungeons, not even of flesh and blood, but of the chaotic energy. They are artificial copies of real pokémon with no purpose but to destroy and to spread the chaos.

Individually, they are relatively weak: a few relatively mnor blows is enough to dispatch most of them, and even without counting that weakness, any trained fighter could hold their own against a single one. Unfortunately, ferals don't come in single ones. They come in swarms.

* * *

The buizel flinched from the vine whip that slapped him across the face. "Damn it," he growled, stumbling back and clutching at his muzzle. "Where did all of you come from?"

The wall of bellsprout didn't respond in any way. Instead, they began throwing more vine whips at him. He grimaced and dropped down to all fours, avoiding the first few, and then sprang to the side as loud snaps hit the ground where he had previously been crouching. When he landed, he suddenly looked backwards, realizing some had snuck up on him. The bellsprout behind him reared their heads back. He took the opportunity to dash right between them. By the time they had released a cloud of noxious purple poison powder, the buizel had managed to get a good distance between himself and the group.

_I wake up in the middle of a forest, I'm somehow a buizel, and I'm suddenly assaulted by bellsprout. Don't I at least get the opportunity to contemplate the sheer absurdity of the situation?_ The bellsprout apparently had no plans to let him do anything, because the half dozen or so of the aggressors suddenly began to dash at him, their tiny roots flying through the air as they sped forwards along the ground.

There was plenty of opportunity to flee at that point. There was still a lot of ground the swarm had to cover to reach him, which would give him enough time to turn and run for it. As a buizel, which were known for their exceptional speed, he certainly was capable of outrunning them any day. _On the other hand, as a buizel…_

He instinctively flicked a paw, and a globe of water began to form in front of it. _I can fight back._

He suddenly dove forward, past the front-runners, right into the middle of the swarm. Before any of them could react, he rolled onto his hind feet, brought his paw up, and gave one of them a mighty punch to the head, slamming the mass of water into it just as it burst. The bellsprout's head then exploded into a mass of static.

_What the…?_

* * *

The stone tree continued to fall over, creating an ominous rumbling from its base. It was a tall, thick one, easily capable of crushing the covered wagon irreparably the moment it hit. The rhyhorn started to cry out unintelligibly and try to move away, seeing the shadowy pillar fall in its direction. Unfortunately, the wagon was parked facing the tree and the best the rhyhorn could do was to maneuver itself out of the way, leaving the wagon vulnerable.

"Oh noooo!" the lombre cried, holding his head in panic as he realized this. "My cargo! It's doomed! We're doomed!"

The tree was now at a 45-degree angle, a massive, growing black slab in the orange sky. Suddenly, it exploded.

A flash of fire and light suddenly burst from the center of the tree, shoving it up slightly with the force, and splitting it into two parts. The surge of pressure hit the ground, ruffling the lombre's leaf-hat in the wave of heat. "Wh– What?" he mumbled weakly as a rain of small rock fragments from the tree branches also fell.

"Nice shot, Haru!"

The monferno's mouth could be seen grinning under the heavy black goggles he had on as he set down some kind of bronze pipe. Yet, the tree, even in two pieces, was still falling, the explosion having only bought them a few scant seconds.

"Clay! Get me up!" the mawile suddenly shouted to the larvitar behind her.

"On it," he grunted, suddenly digging his hands into the ground. With a yell, he suddenly pulled them up. A block of dirt suddenly came up with his hands, forming a tower right underneath the mawile, which sent her flying into the air.

As she sped towards the bottom half of the tree, the giant false jaw hanging off the back of her head suddenly began to gleam. Upon meeting the extending branches of the tree, she crossed her arms in front of herself, guarding against the prodding stones. Her momentum carried her to the trunk easily as the rocky twigs cracked impotently against her armor and iron skin. With a quick shout, she deftly spun her head around, slamming the gleaming, massive jaw through the branches into the dark stone. The blow _pulverized_ the tree where it hit, splitting it into two pieces again, but this time, both pieces were actually flying sideways, finally landing a safe distance from the wagon and everyone else.

Meanwhile, a slight glow was surrounding the upper half of the blown-up tree. The kirlia gritted his teeth, shifting his legs for a better stance as he held his arms out with the same glow. The tree's fall was slowing down as his Psychic tried to push it away. Unfortunately, big stone logs were heavy, and stopping it completely before it crushed the wagon was out of his ability. Fortunately, he didn't have to.

The drifloon suddenly dove underneath the falling tree, instantaneously inflating to ten times his size. The expansion also caused his rubber-like body to slam into the falling stone, bringing it to a stop against the indent it made on the drifloom's body just before he touched the wagon below him. After a moment of stillness, the stone tree, half of its branches crushed against his body, bounced away. The drifloon suddenly deflated into his original miniscule size, releasing all that extra mass in a beam of white energy, which smashed through the tree, obliterating it in midair.

The lombre stood amongst the raining rock shards from all of the incidents, gawking as the remaining fragments of the stone tree crashed into the ground or the other surrounding trees. "They… they actually blew the whole thing up…" He was suddenly feeling very fortunate having hired these explorers.

"Ha hah! Great job, everyone!" the last of the explorers shouted out, as the mawile landed smoothly on her feet, the kirlia bent over panting from the exertion, and the drifloon floated lazily down. The shaymin, flying through the air, circled around all of them. "Ha hah! Yuzuki! That was awesome! You just slammed that thing to bits like it was nothing! Clay, you too! Hah hah, and –"

"Um, Jaden?" the dratini said in a small voice, interrupting him.

"Yeah, Lyn?" the shaymin answered, looking down at her while floating upside-down.

"Over there…" She pointed to the original base of the tree. On top of it stood a tall kabutops, its scythe claws shining in the golden sunset. Around it was an assortment of feral sudowoodo and cranidos, all obviously picking for a fight.

* * *

And ferals aren't the only hostiles in mystery dungeons. As mentioned before, civilized pokémon lost within mystery dungeons may become corrupted to the point where their minds are nothing more than hosts for the chaos. This process will also happen to wild pokémon as well. The strongest of these corrupted ones become agents of the mystery dungeons, either striking at any intruders alone, or leading swarms of inferior ferals on raids outside and within mystery dungeons.

The corruption isn't purely mental. Extended exposure to the chaos of mystery dungeons will develop odd … mutations. It isn't unusual to find corrupted with lopsided armor-like plates, gangly limbs where they should be short and stout, claws the size and shape of sickles… The corrupted are horrors to look upon. Yet, as stated, _any_ being that stays in mystery dungeons for too long are also vulnerable. This includes wandering innocents, rouges, and explorers. The mutations they experience aren't usually as extreme, but they exist. Sometimes, the only thing that separates these pokémon from the corrupted is their possession of their own minds.

* * *

The corrupted kabutops stood hunched over, the spikes on its back creating ominous clicking noises as they rattled against each other. It raised its pair of wicked serrated scythes threateningly.

"Oh ho," the sableye grinned. "I know this one. Got a nice bounty over its head, it does."

"Ooh, a bounty?" the shaymin said, looking at the corrupted with a grin. "Well, what is it, Hobbes?"

"It's not Hobbes, it's Obsidian," he said gruffly, then quickly returned to his sly tone. "The 'Granite Carpenter,' for eight hundred and fifty coins. A nice find. Seems our coming here was in fact a fortunate turn of events."

"'Granite Carpenter'?" the kirlia repeated with a chuckle, still slightly panting from earlier. "Heh, I can see where the name comes from, seeing as how it cut that stone tree down," he said, gesturing to the remains of the tree they had destroyed, "but it's lacking a certain something in the threat department. Heh heh."

"It could be worse," the monferno said. "Could you imagine something like, the 'Granite Lumberjack'?" This raised a few chuckles.

"Or 'Timber Rock'?" the larvitar suggested with a snicker.

"Try this one!" the sableye shouted, doubling over in laughter. "'Woody the Stoney'!"

"Um," the lombre muttered as the group broke into hysterics. "Aren't you guys forgetting something?"

The ignored kabutops suddenly let out a piercing shriek, interrupting all them. It thrust out a scythe, and the ferals began to run at the group.

"Oh yeah, we didn't we?" the shaymin said, still grinning. "Okay! Everyone! Yuzuki, Clay, and I go for the bounty! Everyone else cover us and the wagon!"

"Okay!" they all responded, dropping everything and rushing into battle.

"Let's do this!"

* * *

The buizel panted as the last of the bellsprout fell to the grassy ground, its leafy body vanishing into sparks, jagged lines, and distorted colors. The small clearing was now completely empty except for the buizel himself, all traces of the bellsprout swarm nonexistent, as if they never were.

_All of them were like that? Just what_ were_ those things? _The orbs of water he had spinning on either paw vanished as he bent over, sucking mouthfuls of air into his lungs. He suddenly clutched at his chest in pain. _Damn it, I must've accidently breathed in some of that poison powder during the fight._ He glanced around the forest. _It shouldn't take too long to find pecha berries here. I can count myself lucky for that. _

…_Wait._

He took another look around the forest, realizing something was very wrong. Then it hit him: the tree he had woken up on was gone. None of the surrounding trees had the same bark and roots. It was as if it had simply vanished while he was fighting.

_What the hell? What is this place? What am I even _doing_ here? Last night, I… _

_I…_

_I can't remember anything._

* * *

Many tales exist in this world.

* * *

A flareon padded through a darkening forest, a leafeon bouncing happily behind her.

A gabite, a sudowoodo, and a poliwhirl laughed heartily as they bumped frothing mugs in a bar.

A poochyena wearing a blindfold dragged a skull across a dirt road.

A scyther, a glaceon, an ariados, and a gliscor packed up their camp at the edge of a forest.

A cubone and a hoothoot frantically argued, pointing at a small, crude map they held.

A mismagius floated above the edge of a building, watching the sunset.

A charmeleon dunked a glowing red vambrace into a tub of water, releasing a heavy cloud of steam.

* * *

Each story is interwoven with those around it.

* * *

The air in the room was cold, damp, and stifling. It was completely dark, except for a sliver of light jutting out of a crack near the ceiling, far above. The scarce light only allowed mere outlines of objects to be visible. Most of the objects were chains. Long lengths of chains spread across the room, from the edges of the ceiling and the floor to a central point, where they latched on to a thin malnourished body covered in ragged clumps of fur.

There was a rattle that echoed around the room as the chains briefly clanked with movement. The lucario's eyes opened. "Soon…"

* * *

This is the story you will be reading.

* * *

The kabutops, unconscious and wrapped up in glowing bands of energy, was tossed into the back of the wagon.

"Well that's taken care of," the shaymin said with satisfaction, as the mawile dusted her hands after the task. Remains of the battle now scarred the clearing: scorched craters left by explosions, blocks of earth that jutted up, and other such happenings. The lombre guided the rhyhorn back to the wagon. It had grown restless during the battle, prompting him to release it so it could join. Being used as a beast of burden hadn't diminished its fighting capabilities much.

"The bounty is really 850?" the mawile asked. "It was very weak for that amount, I think."

"That was just the circumstances," the larvitar told her. "Alone, you're already ridiculously powerful, and then there's the fact that we outnumbered it to consider."

She shrugged after a moment. "_Soudesunee_."

"Then let's be off, shall we?" the kirlia said. "The bands I put on our 'carpenter' aren't going to hold forever, you know."

"Yeah," the shaymin nodded. "Now, let's–" Suddenly, his body shrank from the reindeer-like shape into a hedgehog, causing him to fall onto the ground from where he was floating. "Ow!"

"Jaden! Are you okay?" the dratini asked, sliding up to him.

"Yeah, ha hah, looks like I run out of sun," he said, getting back on his feet with a smirk.

"It's that late? All the more reason to hurry," the kirlia said.

"Indeed. Everyone, gather around and put your hands in."

As one, all of the explorers moved to do so, forming a circle, and placed whatever hand they could into the center.

This is the story of a lost soul.

_No… I do remember something…_

_My name…_

_My name is Pace.  
_

This is the story of a guild.

"Let's do this! All together! One! Two! Three!"

"JOUTEI!"

This is a story of a legend.

* * *

_**2percent presents**_

_**Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Joutei**_

* * *

Yes! Joutei is back and better than ever, people!

Alright, those of you who know this is a (second) rewrite are probably wondering what makes this version so different. Well, if the intro alone hasn't answered that, one, I've spent over a year entertaining that question, for the sole purpose of making this more than Joutei v3.0. Two, and this is a biggie, no. More. Retcons. With the previous versions of the story, I couldn't leave a chapter up for a week without rewriting it into submission. If you were to look at v2, you'd find some segments that hardly make sense anymore. Now, I've decided to set this story in stone, and leave chapters as they are once they are published, except for some trivial fixes. Three, I'm not going to give the rest of the answers. You can just read and think of them yourself.

And I hope you will understand, I picked a bad time to start. You know, this is my senior year of high school, I have college applications that need filling out, that crap, and by next fall, I'll actually have to start going to college. Anyone who's been there knows what that can do to your schedule. But, meh, there's no time like the present. :D

In other news, TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Vocabulary. Google it. Read a few pages if you have an evening to waste. I will be using TV Trope terms a lot in my author notes.

And in more other news I bet none of you have noticed the lack of disclaimer at the top.

And in even more other other news, I bet those of you who didn't immediately scrolled up.

Review!


	2. Part I: Puzzles

"Hmm…"

The flareon frowned into the darkening sky. The golden shafts of sunlight that had previously streaked through the forest were all but gone by now, and the forest was now submerged in the twilight half-darkness. If one were to look closely, they would notice a particular oddity in the trees. For one, the leaves didn't seem to know what trees they were supposed to be growing on. One tree had the slumping twigs and leaves of a willow, but mixed around them were the broad leaves of a beech tree and hanging clumps of small, shriveled peaches. Other trees also featured more-than-curious mixes of maple leaves, pine needles, acorns, and as many other traits one could name. One tree actually featured pineapples, albeit tiny, unappetizing ones. That wasn't what concerned the flareon at the moment, though.

She sighed, using a paw to adjust the black bandanna she wore on her head, unmarked except for a small hole for the tuft of fur on the top of her head. It was getting really late. Another hour, and the forest would be all but devoid of light. Not that the darkness would be that much of a hindrance (just because she was a fire Pokémon didn't mean she couldn't see without firelight, thank you very much), but she would really rather get a decent night of sleep, and a good, filling meal. Not necessarily in that order.

A bunch of shrubs not to far from her had been shaking violently, as if something was squirming through it, but the flareon was ignoring it. She bent her head down into the small bag strapped around her neck, and pulled out a round object with her mouth. She set it on some flat ground not occupied by twisting tree roots, and began to study it with a look of strained concentration. It looked like a compass, except for the fact that there were several, widely varied arrows rather than one regular needle: they were gray, silver, gold, brass, thin, fat, stubby, spindly, and any combination of the above. Even what appeared to be the base was a large loose disk with multiple marks imprinted around its circumference. Furthermore, the arrows wouldn't stop moving. By the time any reasonable compass would've made up its mind as to which way was north, the arrows of this compass insisted on looping around wildly at a variety of inconsistent speeds and directions, and they didn't appear to be slowing down, annoying the flareon to no end.

After a half a minute of staring into the device, towards the end of which she was starting to get cross-eyed, Ioa sat down on her rear with a humph. "Bah, this was supposed to be an easy mission," she grumbled.

The shuddering bushes stopped for a moment, and suddenly, a bunch of leaves popped up through it along with a furry head they rested on. "Did you say something?" the leafeon asked.

Ioa waved her off with a forepaw. "Nothing." She looked at the sky again. "It's getting really late, you know. We should get back to town."

"Huuuuuhh?" That exclamation was unnecessarily and annoyingly drawn out. "But we haven't finished the mission!" The leafeon whined, padding out of the shrubbery. A surprising amount of leaves still clung to her body, even considering her species.

"Yes, well, we tried our best of course."

"We can't go back! We haven't found the small wooden box with an engraving of an articuno on the golden lock on the front!" It was also annoying how Tina would always recite that entire description instead of just calling it the box. Ioa had a suspicion that her sister didn't even know what an engraving was. Fortunately, the flareon was more-or-less immune to this sort of behavior, having endured it for years.

"The box will still be there tomorrow." She paused. "Well, unless some other team already found it and we've been wandering around out here for nothing. I guess we'll know when we check the request board next morning."

"Oh, okay!" Tina somehow seemed satisfied by this. Her mind worked in strange ways.

Both of their ears perked as they heard something scrambling through the undergrowth in the distance. Ioa quickly snatched up the compass, its arrows still blissfully spinning around, and stuffed it into the bag as Tina suddenly dropped all previous bounciness and settled into a combat stance, dropping her weight low and ready to pounce. They were both prepared by the time a single buizel appeared in front of them. A single one, of course, usually meant a corrupted. Figures. An easy pack of ferals was too much to ask for right as they began setting off to town. Then she noticed the look of shock on its face. Huh, neither ferals nor corrupted were known for showing emotion beyond bestial aggression. So that meant–

Her thoughts were unceremoniously interrupted by the arrival of a swarm of beautifly, which immediately began to attack indiscriminately at all ground targets with blasts of silvery air. The sisters tried to dodge, they really did, but it's not as if dodging _wind_ was that easy. They were shoved off their feet and sent rolling backwards by the gusts, and by the time they got back up, the air was filled with silver dust and floating debris. If it weren't as dark as it was, there would've been quite an obnoxious glitter everywhere. Worse, the beautifly seemed ready to attack again.

"Not!" Ioa's fur suddenly began to waver as if it were a flame itself. "A!" She sucked in a lungful of air. "CHANCE!" She roared, shooting a sweeping stream of fire out of her mouth with the last word. The wall of flame ignited the silver dust, gaining strength, and incinerated four beautifly before they could move out of the way. Another two began burning at the wings, colors and jagged lines flashing out of existence. Ioa watched the results with a smug grin, even as she panted heavily. It was their fault for crowding together like that in the first place.

"My turn!" Tina shouted. She suddenly began swinging and jerking her head and body, sending leaves spinning towards the ferals. This attack was less effective, most of the barrage was dodged, and the one leaf that did strike only cut through a single wing with hardly a burst of static. Tina pouted as she finished.

Ioa was about to make a comment, but suddenly, one of the beautifly suddenly disappeared with a flash and a sound like a wet bang. "Oh yeah, I forgot about the buizel," she murmured. The said buizel was dropping from where the feral was, but with another burst of water, he was flying towards another target, a swirling orb of water in one paw.

Ioa tore her attention away and fired another flamethrower, now that she had her breath back. The swarm was spread out now, so to her disappointment, only two were caught, and one was already half-burned. She saw the buizel dispatch another two. It was quite efficient, actually. He just shoved himself through midair with aqua jet until he could latch onto his target, and slammed those exploding orbs of water into their bodies, blowing them up in one hit. They never got a chance to hit back. By now, there was only one of the ferals left, and it was other one that had caught fire. It fluttered to the ground feebly, and Tina ran up to it and rent it in two with a swing of her head and a swipe of a blade of leaf.

"Yay! Look! Look! I got one! I got one!" she called out eagerly as the static faded out.

"Yeah, I saw," Ioa responded, not adding any further comment. However, her smug demeanor at getting six couldn't be more obvious. "So anyways, those were some sweet moves you pulled there…" she said, turning to the buizel. She trailed off when she noticed he was still holding globs of water at them threateningly. "Hey, hey! Cool off a bit, will you?" Ioa said, backing up a step. "We're not your enemies!"

"How can I be sure?" His voice came out in a low drawl that wasn't entirely fitting for a usually upbeat and active species.

"Well, we're definitely not feral or corrupted or anything like that! Isn't that good enough?" If she had hands, she would be waving them around defensively.

The buizel was silent, watching them coolly. Ioa took a moment to examine him more closely. It seemed that the buizel had been out for a while, seeing how ragged and filthy is fur was. Speaking of his fur, it was an unusually dark color for a buizel, noticeably more red than orange. Then there was the rubbery collar that buizel have, but this one's seemed to be shredded up to the point of uselessness, now nothing more than a ring of yellow rags. Then there were his clothes, or rather, his lack thereof. He had no coat, bag, belt, or anything else to speak of, so the only explanation was that he had been robbed blind or something. And furthermore, the water itself was off. During the battle, all the silver dust was obscuring her senses, but now, she could clearly smell… salt water. That was brine he was using. Unusual, considering how far inland this was. Usually, you only found that move on sea pokémon.

"Yeah!" Tina suddenly said, interrupting Ioa's observations. "We can talk and stuff! Go us!" Both Ioa and the buizel turned to stare at her.

After a moment, the buizel sighed. "You must think I'm pretty gullible if you think I'm going to let down my guard just because you can talk." He had relaxed his pose slightly, but he still held those swirling orbs of waters in his paws.

"Suspicious much?" Ioa grumbled, making sure the buizel could hear.

"Maybe. _Then_ there's your insistence on bugging me."

"Well, look at you! It's obvious you haven't had a good rest or meal at all lately! We can get you back to town no problem!"

"So I'm expected to just believe you're just a couple of good Samaritans passing by?"

"What? Oh, come on," she said, getting exasperated by his insistence on refusing help. Not that she really know what a 'sammy-ritin' was, but she thought she got the gist of it. "We're explorers! Being good… Sammy-whatsits is in the job description!"

"…Explorers are known for helping random people?" The buizel seemed puzzled at this. "What happened to the 'exploring' part?"

Ioa gave him a look. He returned it evenly. After a while of this, it slowly dawned upon her that he was absolutely serious about this. This revelation gave her a bit of a shock. "You honestly don't know what I'm talking about?" she nearly cried out, stepping backwards.

"Can't say I do." Dear Arceus, this guy really _was _serious.

"Do– Do you even know where you are?"

"…In a freak forest?"

Ioa blinked. "I can't say that isn't accurate," she grumbled, looking around the trees. She knew plants, thanks to her sister, and ferns hanging off one tree weren't natural at all, though she doubted it was as bad as that one stone forest she heard of. She shook her head. "You're in a _mystery dungeon_." She said it slowly and earnestly, as if hoping the buizel would at least recognize that term.

He didn't.

"Did you fall on your head or something?" she cried out. "What rock have you been living under your entire life?"

Now the buizel was looking annoyed. "Look," he sighed, finally giving up the stance. The swirling water suddenly vanished from his paws into a few sprinkles. "I think I have amnesia."

"…You _think_."

"Well, I can't remember anything about my life since before I woke up in the middle of this freak forest. However, the rest of my memory seems to be intact, except for these 'mystery dungeons,' which is odd. Accidental amnesia is typically not that specific," he explained, crossing his arms.

"Hm, it isn't?" Ioa thought about this. "So you have a blanket memory wipe, but only in a certain category."

"That's what I just said."

"Maybe it was a psychic who didn't want you to know something, so they wiped your memory and left you out here?" she suggested, ignoring him.

"One, it would be much safer and more simple to wipe all of my memory and not just a specific area, leaving everything else untouched," he countered immediately, "and two, it would be even more safe and simple to just kill me and be done with it."

Ioa frowned. "Maybe they didn't want to go that far?" she muttered, though she knew that was unlikely. Apparently, he had already considered all the options on his own, so that threw all the obvious theories out the window, considering he still didn't know what exactly was wrong with him. "I don't know, maybe it's just a mystery dungeon thing," she shrugged.

"Again with the mystery dungeon. Care to explain?"

She looked at the buizel, just standing there and waiting for an answer any random guy plucked off the streets could give. She sighed. "All right, settle down, and let Ms. Exposition here explain," she said, smirking. She paused. "On the second thought, why don't we at least start walking back to town? It's late, and I want to get some rest, and I'm sure you do too."

The buizel closed his eyes, and let out a deep sigh. "Fine," he said after a while. "I'll go with you."

"Great!" Ioa said with a smile. "Say, I never got your name!"

"You should give your own name before asking– where's the other one?" he suddenly asked, looking around. "The leafeon?"

"Hm?" She glanced around the darkened woods. Indeed, the leafeon was nowhere in sight. "Bah, the ditz must've wandered off again."

"…Shouldn't that… worry you? At all?"

"Nah, she can find her way back just fine. TINA!" she suddenly bellowed, nearly causing the buizel to stumble back.

He blinked, and then rubbed his head. "Any method that does not pose the danger of attracting all the wild Pokémon in a five hundred yard radius?"

"Oh, I didn't think about that."

The buizel looked as if he was going to reply, but he sharply glanced at a set of bushes just as Tina emerged through them. "Behind you!" he shouted. Indeed, when Ioa looked, there was a swarm of feral nuzleaf behind her sister, their heads and leaves barely visible over the bushes. One jumped ahead, about to punch her in the head.

Tina, in an instant, spun around, and every leaf on her body seemed to extend out into flat blades as she swept right into the nuzleaf. The next moment, she was jerking her head and back around, swiping every leaf she could at the offending nuzleaf in a wild frenzy. Gashes appeared in its body, bursting forth with that static instead of blood. She only kept at it for a few seconds before leaping away, and into the middle of the swarm, leaving the lone nuzleaf to vanish completely.

"Hah," Ioa smirked, even as the melee was mostly obscured by the shrubs, "I bet she's trying to make up for her contribution last fight." Then she noticed the buizel gaping slack-jawed. Her smirk turned into an even wider grin. "Surprised?" Who wouldn't be at that green twister dancing around back there? The nuzleaf were fighting back, but she knew that wouldn't last long.

"…Possibly," he muttered weakly, regaining control of his jaw.

"You're not the first." By now, the thuds and chopping sounds were fading out, so most of the swarm had either been hacked into that fading static-y material or were now trying to run from the flailing ball of destruction. "Okay, Tina, that's enough! Move out of the way!" she shouted out. Tina finally stopped her attack, and quickly leaped back to Ioa's side, teetering slightly. Now that she was out of the way, Ioa sucked in a deep breath, and breathed out a single mote of fire. It immediately zoomed through the bush, over to the recovering nuzleaf, and then exploded into a star-shaped blast of fire, lighting up the forest and incinerating a fair bit of the shrubs as well as the rest of the nuzleaf. Except not really.

"One got away!" Tina shouted, gesturing to a rapidly shrinking figure through all the smoldering undergrowth. Ioa grimaced, realizing that it was too far to hit with any accuracy, meaning they would have to chase after it themselves, which was a pain; fire blast was already an exhausting move without having to dash right after. Before she could act on this, there was suddenly a black streak through the burnt hole in the bushes and the retreating figure was instantly struck down.

"Sweet," Ioa said as soon as it was evident what had happened. The buizel had just used the move pursuit to catch up to the feral in record time, the black streak coming from the aura such dark-type moves usually created. She and Tina ran up to him, where he was straddling the struggling nuzleaf's back, holding a new orb of brine. He smashed it into the feral's head just as they caught up. "Great job!" Ioa said brightly.

He merely grunted in response, hopping off the vanishing flicker. "Why is it necessary to chase them down anyways?"

"Well, if we don't, they'll get help from other swarms and come right back."

"So a single wild pokémon draws more attention than all of the fireballs you've been shooting out?"

"Hey, don't question me. I've been in this business for longer than you have."

The buizel gave her a look as if trying to figure out whether or not she was joking.

"So where were we before all that?" Ioa muttered. "Oh right, our names. The name's Ioa! And my sister's is Tina!"

"Hello!" the leafeon cheered, waving a paw.

"…Pace," the buizel said, nodding to them. His gaze paused on Tina, his brows rising in shock. Ioa looked at her as well and saw why. The leafeon's body, after her berserker assault on the swarm, was missing chunks of leaves and was covered in a number of nasty cuts and bruises. Several gashes were actually bleeding, though if there was enough light, the buizel would've seen that it was a pinkish clear liquid, a side effect of being half-plant. It was still blood, though.

"What?" Tina asked, finally noticing the looks from the other two. She seemed completely oblivious to her injuries, which would've had most other pokémon wincing in pain with every movement.

"She'll be fine," Ioa assured Pace with a knowing smirk. "She's special like that."

"Really now?" he asked, looking at both of the sisters incredulously.

"What's wrong?" Tina asked again, tilting her head.

"Well, for starters, there's the giant gash on your left shoulder. And the lacerations on your right flank. And those bruises around your face. That sort of stuff," he said, all in perfect deadpan.

"Oh those?" She smiled unperturbedly. "They'll go away."

"…Yes, I am sure they will. Eventually." Ioa could've sworn his voice managed to become even more deadpan.

"Anyways," she said loudly, getting their attention, "we've dawdled long enough out here. Now let's start heading back to town for real this time, m'kay? Before we get attacked by _more_ ferals."

"I dunno," Pace frowned, crossing his arms. "We demolished the last two groups so easily, we might as well mow through the entire forest."

He had a point. Between the two groups they had fought, only one of them actually got a single round of attacks off before defeat if she didn't count the damage Tina got from her brawling, which she didn't. Yet, "I'd count that as lucky," she told him. "Just wait until we run into a swarm of scyther or something nasty like that. Or a corrupted. I promise you we won't walk away from one of those unscathed."

"You still haven't explained anything about mystery dungeons or corrupted or anything like that."

"Oh right, the exposition I promised," Ioa nodded. "I'll give you the basics for now. You know how the world's covered in all those chaotic rifts, don't you?"

For a brief moment, his neutral, annoyed expression gave way to more shock than she'd seen from him so far; his eyes bulging out like those of a hoothoot. In a blink, he had regained his composure, but she could still tell he was reeling under the surface. "I do now," he managed to say levelly.

Even Tina noticed something was off, but Ioa nudged her with her shoulder before she could say anything. "Yeah, there was this huge disaster a long time ago," she continued as if nothing had happened. "It completely tore up the space-time, and it's… bleeding chaos into the world, or something like that. That's what all the officials and scientists are saying, but I don't entirely get it all."

He still kept that passive face on, so she continued. "Mystery dungeons are basically giant knots of that chaos. You get it everywhere, but there's these boundaries where that chaos just gets more extreme. Like, those trees around us. You've noticed that much, right?" The buizel nodded, glancing at a pinecone-laden yew. "And there's more: your sense of direction gets entirely messed up and you start going in circles, ferals and corrupted start running around everywhere, and after a while, it gets into your _head_."

"So you suppose the mystery dungeon is responsible for my amnesia?" Pace asked.

"That's the only explanation I can think of," Ioa nodded. "But memory loss is pretty tame compared to what usually happens."

"So what are you two doing here, and how do you plan on getting back to town if your sense of direction is messed up?"

"We're explorers," Ioa said proudly. "We can resist the effects of mystery dungeons, so it's our duty to help those who can't! And also," she added, digging back into her bag, "we have this." She pulled the compass back out and set it down. She turned back to the bag and searched some more while the buizel leaned over the device to look at it.

"What kind of compass is _that_?" he asked, noticing the myriad arrows glinting in the darkness as they swung about wildly.

"A special kind. It's a called mystery navigator, but you can call it a compass if you want," she answered, pulling a folded piece of paper out of the bag. She set it down as well and began to unfold it, hooking her claws between the thin folds. Before long, she had a map spread out, and she pulled the compass onto it.

"Let's see…" she muttered as she began shoving the compass around the map. In the darkness, it wasn't as easy as it could've been, but she could see a pattern in all the arrows. They continued to swing around randomly, but she could sense them directing her right… "There. This is where we are now."

Pace squinted at the map. Ioa wasn't sure if the buizel's night vision were as good as hers, but she hoped he could see the boundaries of the mystery dungeon, the walls of the nearby town, Jigsaw, and the spot her own paw was pointing.

"What else can it show you?" he asked.

"A lot of things," she responded, dragging the compass right over Jigsaw. "There's some conditions, though."

"Like the map?" He momentarily glanced over her shoulder, but she ignored him, focusing on the map.

"The map just makes it easier to focus on what you're trying to find, if it's a location. You have to know what you're looking for. Say, you were searching for someone lost in here, the compass would have an easier time locating them if you've actually met before."

"I see," he nodded. "So this town, Jigsaw, is that way?"

"Huh?" Ioa looked up at him as he gestured somewhere behind her, to her left. No way, he didn't just…

"That's where the arrows keep pointing, isn't it?" He _did!_

"You can read it!" she exclaimed.

"I… yeah?" He was thrown off, but Ioa didn't really care.

"Awesome! You barely took any time to read it at all!"

"It was obvious! It wasn't hard or anything!"

"Exactly! Not for you!"

"…What?" He was thoroughly confused by now, but she wasn't about to let that hamper her excitement. She had to actively refrain from skipping around like Tina.

"Not just anyone can read a mystery navigator," she explained quickly. "It takes that same resilience to the mystery dungeon's other effects, and the touch differs in strength in those who have it."

"The touch?" He was still bemused, but he was grasping what she was saying.

"That's what the gift is called. Anyone who has the touch can become an explorer, and it's obvious you can be a great one!"

"Because I could read a compass?"

"Because you only took a few seconds to read it! When I started looking for the town, you looked over my shoulder… You knew right away! If you could read the compass that quickly, the touch has to be really strong on you!"

"Then how did I get amnesia from the mystery dungeon if I have this 'touch'?"

"Don't know, maybe you got the touch after the amnesia." Ioa was beyond caring at this point. "You have the touch, and you're not a bad fighter… That settles it!"

"Settles what now?"

"You're _so_ going to join my exploration team!"

"Your team?"

"Yeah, it's just me and Tina right now, but now you're joining!

"Now wait a min–"

"Oh, don't worry about your old job, this is much more fun! Oh wait, you have amnesia, you don't remember your job." Her excitement died down a bit.

"Er…"

"We'll probably have to search around, see if anyone knows any missing buizel. _Then_ you can work for us! Hah, I can't wait! Finding that box tomorrow will be a breeze with you around!" By now, Pace had given up arguing and was rubbing his forehead in aggravation. "Now, where's Tina?" She had apparently wandered off again. "Tina!" she shouted, only slightly annoyed that this was the second time this had happened in fifteen minutes.

The leafeon reappeared in a few moments, but this time, she thankfully not trailing another swarm of ferals. "What's going on?"

"We're heading back, and we have a new teammate!" Ioa told her, folding the map back up.

"Oh really? Yay! Who is it?"

After putting back the map, she thumped her paw into the buizel's side. "This guy of course!" Pace stumbled slightly as the flareon bent over to retrieve the compass. "Now, let's go!" Then she heard a strangled gasp behind her. She whirled around, and saw an expression of sheer shock and – terror? – on the buizel's face as he looked skyward. It was so startling that all of Ioa's cheer faded immediately. "What's wrong?" she asked, following his gaze. "The trees? I know they're weird, but you already knew that, didn't you?"

Pace's mouth gaped as he fought to produce a coherent answer. "Not… trees…" he managed to say. Ioa tilted her head in confusion. He shook his head, tearing his gaze away from the sky. His chest began to heave lumps of air in and out, and suddenly, bizarrely, he began laughing. It came only as a hoarse sniggering, but it was still frightening, combined with a mad expression and bared fangs in the moonlight.

Ioa now was stepping back. "Are you… okay?"

"What's so funny?" Tina asked, her eyes even wider than usual.

"No– Nothing," Pace eventually said, standing up. "Heh heh, it's just… I have a feeling I'm not in Kansas anymore." He suddenly broke into another round of chuckles as both the sisters tilted their heads even further.

"Sorry," he said another while later, regaining his composure. Once again, he was still reeling under that neutral face of his, but he also seemed at bit more… Tense? Or at ease? She had no idea what to make of it. "Now, shall we get going?" he asked, gesturing in the same direction he had pointed out earlier.

"Yeah… let's do that," Ioa said, thankful he had remembered. "I'll lead the way."

Silently, the group began to move. Ioa looked back up at the sky one more time. That was strange. She didn't expect him to not even know that there were three moons.

* * *

**Part I  
Puzzles**

* * *

I am so evil.

"Hold on, where's Luma?" You ask? Not here. Yet. You'll have to suffer a few years of suspense at the rate I'm writing. Between WoW, reading other fanfics and Tvtropes, and doing schoolwork, I've been short on time to spare writing, and that's not about to change drastically any time soon.

I duly thank **The Bookster**, **kirby163**, and Tas for your reviews. At first, I was disappointed that my first chapter didn't rake in as many reviews as v2's, but I suppose the circumstances were different enough that it shouldn't be that surprising.

And yes, I will still be accepting OCs. BUT, I will be holding much higher standards now. If you throw me a two-line description of a gruff lucario that doesn't like to talk and spends a lot of time meditating, I might as well have just made the character myself. I need something in-depth, with meat, perspective, a character I can get behind and understand. Include sample dialogue or reactions to sample situations if you must. Just give me something I can work with. _Please_. Furthermore, even if I do accept your OC, keep in mind that there is no guarantee I will write that him/her in for a long while. I have a plan as to where the plot is going, so I have to make allowances for any incoming OCs.

Review!


	3. Gathering the Pieces

Pace's mind was still reeling. _This isn't making any sense!_ He was running ahead of the sisters at the moment, managing to keep track of the direction he knew the town to be in amongst the other thoughts crashing around his head. _I'm suddenly a pokémon in a world filled with this 'chaos' and a split between wild and intelligent pokémon as a result of an age-old disaster, and there are three moons! If this is a dream, it's an unnecessarily long and convoluted one. If it's someone's idea of a joke… no, that was impossible._ The possibility had lingered even as the flareon explained the world to him as if there was no reason to think otherwise, _but you can't just_ fake_ three moons!_

He'd followed the other two through the forest at a surprisingly quick pace (he didn't mind using the word, even though it was his name. He was probably subconsciously used to it already.), keeping up with their swift run by doing the same on all fours. It would've been degrading, but one, he was only among other pokémon and he was a pokémon himself, so he had no reason to be embarrassed, and two, he knew, on some instinctive level, that this was an okay way to get around. Perhaps he had some kind of inner pokémon to go with his pokémon body?

Anyways, they had encountered another swarm on the way. The gulpin were dispatched just as easily as most of his other battles with ferals, as they were called, though they had to stop to wash Tina off and find a pecha berry. Pace thought it ironic that she had so easily ignored her other injuries, yet she could hardly walk after being drenched in poisonous saliva when one gulpin had tried to eat her whole. She cut her way out of its insides easily enough, but she had become next to useless once the poison seeped into her skin and took its toll. As for the other injuries, Ioa had been right. Well before the swarm attacked, all the cuts and bruises had faded to nothing, the only sign they'd existed was the dried blood, which had been cleaned up by now.

Since then, they had pulled out the compass one more time. Pace hardly had to look at the map to read the compass. The pattern in the way the spinning arrows slowed and switched directions was just as obvious as last time, and Ioa's glee only increased. After a while of trailing behind the other two, he had to point out that Ioa was leading them slightly off. At this point, she decided to have him lead despite his reluctance, which was how he got where he was now, dashing through the undergrowth with the two eeveelution sisters running behind him, forming a triangle of sorts.

He was still mulling over the same facts and getting nowhere, when suddenly, something clicked somewhere. It was as if a minute pressure on his body, an irritating buzz, a blur at the edge of his vision that he had never noticed had been peeled off in a moment. His stumbled slightly in his run with the shock of it.

"That would be the edge of the mystery dungeon's boundaries," Ioa told him, seeing his reaction. "Pity it's never as easy to notice when you step in as it is when you step out."

Pace looked up, and almost sighed audibly when he realized the trees were actually normal – as in, without any mixes of pinecones, ginkgos, and cherry blossoms. In fact, they now seemed to consistently come in fall colors. Then he saw two of the moons and averted his gaze.

"I'll take point from here," the flareon continued, still running through the leafy-covered ground. "The forest itself doesn't go on for much further, and the town walls will be in sight soon enough."

"Yay!" Tina cheered. "Can we eat soon? And maybe drink? I feel like drinking."

"Sure, why not?"

Pace gave Ioa a Look. "Is that really a good idea?" _Never mind that pokémon here apparently drink. Is it really a good idea in general to give creatures that can shatter boulders or burn down forests on accident access to alcohol?_

"It's no problem. She'll be falling over singing in her sleep in two cups," Ioa explained.

Pace blinked and rolled his eyes. Soon enough, a rough plain of tough grass, dirt, and small rocks replaced the forest. The town came into sight, and by then, the group had slowed down enough that Pace could now walk upright, rather than down on all fours. The walls, as he expected from a forest town, were mainly wooden. It at least seemed thick enough to withstand a few minutes of beating should a pack of irate tangrowth or venusaur stroll by. Between the slightly curved, bark-covered walls of wood were towers of rough stone blocks, which stood a bit higher than the surrounding walls. These, Pace was sure could withstand a bit more punishment before collapsing. The walls extended off to the side a good distance, curving away at the ends.

They reached the nearest gate quickly enough, which had a well-worn pathway leading away from it for a short distance, before fading. The gate itself was located right in the middle of one of the wooden walls, with an archway of stones bordering it, perhaps just big enough to let an aggron duck through. There were probably larger gates out of sight if something couldn't fit. The double doors around the gate were also made of solid stone. Just inside, a loudred lit by an electric light leaned against an inner wall.

"So," he said with all the muted qualities his species was known for, "Team Ioa finally returns!"

"Team Ioa?" Pace muttered so the flareon could hear. "Aren't we egotistic?"

"I just never bothered coming up with a proper name," she explained simply, before calling back to the loudred. "Yes, indeed we have! And boy, are we in need of the good rest and meal our heroics have earned!" Pace was forced to roll his eyes yet again. 'Team Ioa' hadn't accomplished anything today aside from encountering him and guiding him here. _Well, I suppose that counts as heroics. Sort of._

The loudred laughed jovially at this. By now, they were right inside the gate, so Pace noticed that the loudred was wearing some kind of metal helmet, with notches for his ears. Perhaps it counted for a uniform among the town guard? "But anyways," the guard suddenly said, dropping his laughter quite quickly, "We were worried you wouldn't actually get back." _Eh?_

"Huh?" Ioa blinked.

"Right at this gate, Team Swiftwind reported back this afternoon, two shifts ago. The swablu was in critical condition – the poor girl nearly lost half her wing to frostbite – The farfetch'd wasn't much better, missing half his feathers and with blood all over. Only the pansage could talk, and do you know what he told us?"

Ioa and Pace silently awaited his answer, but Tina decided to ask, "What did he tell you? And what happened to the other two?" Pace facepalmed.

The loudred looked them in the eye. "He told us, 'The Red Tide is here,'" _he said overly dramatically_. Ioa and Tina seemed just as clueless as he was about this 'Red Tide.'

Pace couldn't continue keeping his thoughts to himself. "What is this, some suck-ass campfire scary story?" This got him a look from everyone.

"Who are you?" the loudred asked, as if noticing him for the first time. _If you're a watchman, you suck at that too._

"We found this guy lost in Jigsaw Sky," Ioa explained. Jigsaw Sky. That was the mystery dungeon's name. The towns here were apparently named after nearby mystery dungeons, for reasons he didn't entirely get. "Say," the flareon continued, "Would you happen to know anything about a missing buizel? This one's got some sort of amnesia and he can't remember." _'This one' is right here in case you haven't noticed._

"Hmm…" The loudred leaned in to observe him uncomfortably closely, prompting him to scoot back a bit. "Well I don't know about any lost buizel in this town. You'll have to check the sheriff's office. There ought to be some records over there. Anyways, where was I? Oh yes, the Red Tide. It's in Jigsaw Sky, that's what the pansage said, and he was only conscious for long enough to tell us that. Carrying his teammates must've worn him out… Question?" he said, noticing that Tina had raised a paw in the air like a school kid.

"Um, what's a 'Red Tide'?" she asked, tilting her head.

The loudred blinked before shaking his head. "Right, you guys came down from the north. The Red Tide is a corrupted – a really dangerous one – and it's been popping up at random in a bunch of mystery dungeons from the south. He's been at large for nearly a year now. The first report of him was way down in the southern side of the Ice Region."

This seemed to mean more to the sisters than it did to Pace. "That far away?" Ioa asked. "And it's been loose for that long?"

The guard nodded grimly. "If it's from the barbarian tribes they have down there, that would explain a lot about it. The thing's a monster. Who knows how many explorers and more it's killed? Team Swiftwind was lucky that they all survived."

"'Killed'?" Ioa repeated. "You're messing my fur, aren't you?"

"'Fraid not, sister," he said, shaking his head, which made up most of his body. "Why do you think I told you I was worried you wouldn't get back? All the teams here have been informed and restricted, but we've got two more teams still out there who haven't heard." He looked out towards the forest solemnly. "And we have no idea how much longer we can wait."

Pace doubted that the loudred was really another sibling of hers, so he decided 'sister' was just another part of the slang. Anyways, this corrupted was starting to sound like trouble. The way Ioa usually talked about corrupted, he decided that while they were dangerous, it was only relative to the ferals that surrounded them. _I never considered that some corrupted could be dangerous enough to kill explorers._

"Maybe you should send out some rank-A explorers to get the Red Tide?" Ioa asked. _Rank A? First I've heard of ranks._

"Rank-A?" he scoffed. "Sister, the Red Tide is at least rank-1, and if we had any rank-1 teams, they'd be out there already." _Now there's rank one? Which one is this rank system, alphabetical or numerical?_ "Rank-A teams could handle doing some mission as long as they play it safe, I suppose."

"Well, at least a team specialized at quick search-and-rescues! To get to the teams who don't know! You at least have one of those?"

"That was Team Swiftwind."

For the first time, Pace saw Ioa struck speechless.

"We've already called for back-up. We're not sure which guild will answer, but it can't take more than a day for them to show up. Even so, the Red Tide has escaped capture for a year, so I'm not exactly confident. The only good thing about this is that it never sticks around on place for long. A week later, and Jigsaw Sky will be safe for teams below rank-A again" With this, the loudred leaned back on the wall. "Well, what're you waiting for? Go on in," he said, gesturing towards the opening into the town.

"…Well that was certainly dramatic," Pace grumbled as they began to walk. "You learn something new every hour."

Ioa was still silent. Even Tina seemed troubled enough to not bounce around like usual. He sighed, and rather than trying to prod them into talking, he started looking around the town, stricken by how much like and unlike a human town it was. Here, so close to the wall, there were more trees, gardens and grass than houses, all obviously well cultivated, by their healthy appearances relative to the plant life outside the walls. It was that obvious. Apart from the trees were – actually, "apart" was the wrong word. Many of the buildings seemed to either be heavily modified trees themselves or were built literally around the trees, so there were wooden shacks, clay igloo-like huts, and blends of other architectural styles Pace couldn't recognize, all with at least one tree growing on or straight through it. Here, most of the lighting came from burning torches set on stone pillars, the higher buildings, and a few trees (these ones were glass-covered, of course). There were few pokémon out here, walking to and from their homes or what seemed to pass for downtown in the distance.

"So," Ioa suddenly said. "First things first. How about we get something to eat?"

* * *

_Oh waiter! Yes, excuse me, I hate to be a bother but… someone seems to have dropped their fruit salad in my taco. After emptying the taco of anything that would've made it a taco, may I add._

That was the only way Pace could really think of to describe the meal placed in front of him. It was sort of like a taco, it was a wrapping of tough flatbread stuffed with a bunch of chopped-up berries. At least unlike a cheap taco would've done at this point, this didn't drip juice all over his paws, which was odd. One would think pokémon would care less about that sort of thing than humans. Well, the meal didn't require utensils, so Pace supposed it made sense for a population that often lacked fully opposable thumbs. Take Ioa and Tina, muzzle-deep in a clay bowl each. They might as well been eating their meals out of troughs. Their meals seemed to be fried berry slices. This slice of pokémon cuisine certainly involved a lot of berries. Still, it was tasty, so he had to give the cooks here credit.

He leaned back and glanced around the small restaurant. It wasn't all that crowded, though time had little to do with it. A sole cacnea served the few diners, who were either seated on the ground at low tables, or just standing at them, depending on their height. Some were having berry wraps like his, some were feeding on different combinations of the berry mix from bowls, and a machoke was having what seemed to be berry soup. _Really? Interesting. I wonder how_ that_ would taste._

He took the moment to observe another aspect of pokémon culture: clothing. It seemed that somewhere along the line, someone decided that human fashions would look good on pokémon. Well, they were right, to an extent. It could be practical, too. Take Ioa. Again. She had that plain black bandanna tied snugly over her head with convenient holes for her ears and that tuft of fur on her forehead. Pace wasn't sure how she managed to tie it, but obviously, she managed. Aside from that was the tough leather armor tied to her legs, and it came with small metal plates; their scratches and dents testified to their use in battle. Overall, the bandana and the brown armor gave her a roguish look. As Pace looked out a window, he saw some pokémon with similarly well-coordinated outfits, but unfortunately, that wasn't all. For example, a manectric with a cowboy hat. _What._ A houndour with a black cape. _Stop trying to look cool. Please_. A wigglytuff with what seemed to be a bright green t-shirt. _No._ He gave up after the hypno with jeans and nothing else. Just about every pokémon had at least something that counted as clothing somewhere, be it a hat, a coat, a belt, a poncho, a single glove, or whatever else. Taste just seemed to be secondary in an unfortunate amount of cases.

"If you're not going to eat that, can I have it?" His thoughts were, again, jerked back into his body. Tina was standing in front of him looking hopefully at the berry wrap in his paw, her muzzle stained blue and pink by the juice from her finished meal.

"H–" Tina didn't even wait for his response before leaning over and taking a sizable bite out of it. "Idiot," he grumbled when the leafeon began rolling on the floor, spitting out fire.

"It tastes like hurt! It tastes like hurt!" she whined, frantically batting at her smoking mouth.

"He did order the super-spicy spelon mix, you know," Ioa pointed out from her meal, shoving a bowl of water towards her. Tina quickly dunked her face into it and held it there for so long, Pace was afraid she was about to drown in less than a pint of water. _She can't be that stupid, can she?_ She did eventually come back up, slumping to the ground as her chest heaved.

It was surprising how few of the surrounding pokémon took that much interest in the spectacle. Tina's actions hadn't exactly been quiet. Then again, this population was notably durable as a whole. Pace quickly finished up his berry wrap after that, deciding he didn't want to take any more chances. _Pity, this is a good spicy._

"You're tough," Ioa said with a small smirk, looking at him as he swallowed the last of it. "Even I wouldn't be able to handle something that hot." Pace only shrugged in response.

Not much later, Ioa left a few silver and copper coins for the meal, and as the cacnea cleared up their dishes, the three of them walked out onto the street. Here, downtown, brighter electric lighting was much more heavily used, and the buildings tended to be taller, with evidence of multiple stories, and more likely to be based on stone and bricks than wood. In fact, Pace noticed a good deal of visible metal frames. Eve so, a good chunk of the buildings seemed to still have trees growing straight through them, dropping various leaves of red and yellow on the packed-dirt streets. The streets themselves were crowded for the night – which made sense, considering that a sizable chunk of the pokémon population was naturally nocturnal – and every here and then, there was some stall, made of either metal poles, wooden carts, and/or colored canvas, with some pokémon selling various wares, from food to clothes to trinkets and more.

Even as he absorbed all this, Pace remained wary of the passerby. Sure, he'd met two seemingly trustworthy, pokémon here quickly enough, and everyone he'd met in town hadn't shown any ill will, but he felt that was no reason not to be careful. He had seen, well, hobos just sitting around the dingier streets, shifty figures hidden under thick cloaks that sometimes hid their species, and what he could tell were much less conspicuous 'dealers', so Pace had no illusions regarding the existence of crime. Sure, maybe he was paranoid by watching everyone who went near out of the corner of his eye, but, naturally, he would only be paranoid until he was right.

"Tina," Ioa was saying, "Run down to the sheriff's office and find out about any missing buizel, will you?"

"Okay!" she said with a salute, then pawed off in some direction.

"Can we really trust her to manage that alone?" Pace asked, watching the leafeon until she was out of sight.

"It's fine," Ioa assured him. "She may be a ditz, but if there's something she's good at, it's following directions." _What is she, a robot?_ "Now let's get you some clothes." _Good idea. Even as a pokémon, being naked here seems to make you stand out a bit._

* * *

"An… interesting purchase," Ioa muttered dubiously.

After maybe half an hour spent wandering through a marketplace, which was just a district dedicated to those stalls he had seen on the streets, they'd assembled an outfit for Pace. First was a dark leather harness, mainly composed of three loops, going around his waist, over his shoulders, and crossing over his chest and back. It was fitted with a few buckles and straps, covered small multi-purpose metal hoops, and thick enough to not be uncomfortable when pressed. A good find. _I never thought I'd be so comfortable wearing leather._ And he got a hat. A navy blue bucket hat with a neck string. He wasn't sure why, but he liked the hat. It felt vaguely… familiar. Not that particular hat, but it was pretty close.

In any case, it wasn't either of these that concerned Ioa at the moment, as they maneuvered through the crowd.

"It will be useful," Pace replied simply, just loud enough so she could hear him over the various sellers advertising their wares.

"It better be. That kind of stuff isn't cheap here, you know."

"You said the same about the harness."

"Yes, I did, but that applies to this even more. This town doesn't have a lot of smithies, and none that specialize in that stuff. You'd better work hard to pay up for everything I'm doing for you."

"With that corrupted out there?"

"…"

Suddenly, Tina.

"Hi! I'm back!" she shouted, bouncing right up in front of the two. "I asked around, but no one knew about any missing buizel from here or anywhere nearby in the last two months."

Ioa's surprise was evident. "Really? That's weird," she said, her brow rising rapidly. "Then just where _did_ you pop up from?" she asked Pace.

"Let me think, oh, I don't know," he deadpanned. "Amnesia, remember?"

For a moment, a look of doubt crossed Ioa's face, and she peered intently into his neutral expression. The next moment, it was gone. _Shit. She's suspicious._

She was about to say something else, but Tina cut her off. "Hey, what's going on over there?" There was a light crowd gathered up one side of the street, where some singing could be heard. _Is that… pop? Now pokémon have pop songs?_

"Ooh, is it a bard?" Ioa asked, suspicions forgotten. "That's cool. I haven't heard any good songs in a while. Come on!" she said as she started to squeeze through the crowd. Tina followed eagerly, and with a shrug, so did Pace. By the time he got into sight (over the heads of a pair of marill), the kirlia playing on the guitar seemed to already be on his final chorus.

"_So welcome to flipside, run out the other side,  
And take a good~ look around!  
I'll show you the far side, I'll light up the dark side,  
I'll flip this town~ upside-down!  
I'll tell you what~ it's all about!  
I'll rock your world~ inside out!_

_So come and see the other side…_

_So welcome to the other side…_

_Welcome to flipside…"_

Amid the applause from the crowd as the last note faded, Pace observed the singer. The kirlia was wearing a denim jacket, which conveniently extended just long enough to flatten the skirt, and he seemed to be paint-splattered all over. Dried blotches of reds, blues, greens, purples, browns, and every other mixture of colors decorated his unkempt hair, the jacket, and his arms. One mass of yellowish-orange stuck perilously close to his left eye. _One, how does a singer get in contact with that much paint, and two, why does he seem to not care?_ The guitar was also of interest: it sparkled ruby red and marble white (it probably would've been an injustice to mention the fancy thing as merely red and white), seemed to take inspiration from a lopsided trapezoid, and lacked strings. At least, physical strings. The kirlia seemed to be substituting with faintly glowing pink threads, likely generated via some psychic move, and it somehow worked pretty well.

"My gratitude!" the kirlia was saying loudly, bowing in response to the cheers. "I thank you all for your patronage!" The bowl set out in front of him was filling up with copper coins of various sizes being tossed in, and Pace could see some silver coins already in the bowl. By now, a few pokémon had left, but a few more had filed in, attracted by the crowd.

"Ooh! Ooh! Do you do requests?" one of the marill in front of Pace asked.

"Certainly, ma'am!" he said, turning to her. "Any particular selection in mind?"

"Oh! Oh!" said the one right by her. "Do 'Living'! That's a good song!"

"Yeah! I want to hear 'Living'!" the first said emphatically. The fresh crowd muttered and called its approval.

"Very well!" he said, and immediately began strumming the guitar.

"_Living! Is this what you all call  
Living! Now don't be so sure,  
Living! I live, but I just need  
A little bit something more,_

_Living! Can't make me stand still,  
Living! Gotta reach for the sky,  
Living! I live, but I can see  
The whole world flying by,_

_I hang around and have a little fun,  
Just inside the imaginary doors,  
I jump and splash in this tiny puddle,  
Right next to a vast ocean to explore,_

_I've locked myself in, I'm shackled in chains,  
But the time's ripe to go busting out!  
I'm off to go and break myself free,  
All my life I've been living without_

_Living! Is this what you all call  
Living! Now don't be so sure,  
Living! I live, but I just need  
A little bit something more,_

_Living! Can't make me stand still,  
Living! Gotta reach for the sky,  
Living! I live, but I can see  
The whole world flying by,"_

Pace stopped listening at this point, because something else had grabbed his attention. Ghost-type pokémon obviously weren't actual ghosts: they ate, they hatched from eggs, they die, they do everything any other pokémon do. However, they usually came with abilities that people used to attribute to spirits, the more common among them being the abilities to manipulate objects without any visible appendages and to become invisible or intangible at will. Contrary to popular belief, ghost-types weren't born able to do that stuff from birth; they had to train with their natural talents just like any other being.

The shuppet Pace saw hadn't entirely tacked down invisibility, which was rather unfortunate for a thief. However, everyone else's attention was on the kirlia, which would've made thing easier, if Pace hadn't been so paranoid. _Ha._ To the shuppet's credit, he managed to keep his opacity at a minimum, and Pace had only noticed because of the shimmer left in the air. He was drifting slowly, carefully towards the bowl of coins in front of the kirlia. _Idiot. If you didn't want to be caught, you'd be picking off the spectators, behind their backs, not in the direction everyone's looking._ It was surprising that no one else had seen him. They were too busy head banging or foot tapping to the song. Even Ioa was absorbed. _Which conveniently leaves me the only guy who can save the day. Figures._

As another verse ended, he held a paw behind his back and began focusing on the dark aura of the move pursuit. While ghost-types could usually become intangible to any physical assault, they couldn't protect themselves from elemental attacks the same way. Even though the shuppet wouldn't be fleeing – Pace didn't plan on letting him know he'd been caught until it was too late – the dark-type element alone would suffice for his purposes.

The thief drifted closer and closer, until it was right on top of the bowl. It bent over and – did something that was difficult to see due to the transparency. When he stopped, Pace realized he had simply hid the coins in his mouth. _Well, I suppose there wouldn't be any other way to carry them without someone seeing mysterious floating coins in the air._ Anyways, as he began to float away, Pace decided to strike.

In an instant, he rushed past the marill, lifted up the paw, ready to unleash the shadowy aura, and before anyone could react, he slammed the shuppet into the ground, knocking him right out of the invisibility. There was a silence as everyone stared at him, including the kirlia, who had paused mid-chord. Pace ignored them, turning his paw to force the shuppet to face the bowl.

"Spit it out," he commanded. The shuppet meekly complied, spitting out a few copper coins back into the bowl. Pace lifted him up, his paw holding onto the horn with Pursuit still active, and started shaking him violently. This coaxed quite a few more copper pieces and several silver coins out of his mouth.

"I think that's enough," the kirlia said, watching a last copper coin drop out into the bowl. "Now hand him here." He dropped the guitar, letting it rest on the strap. Pace held out the shuppet after a brief pause. The kirlia suddenly produced a thick pink glowing cord, much like the strings of his guitar, and flicked it like a whip. It latched on to the shuppet, who was jerked out of Pace's grip with a panicked cry, and he began swirling the thief over his head. "Now perhaps you'll think…" The cord began to speed up, turning the shuppet into a blur. The cry became extended and comically high-pitched. "Before stealing from me again!" the kirlia shouted, letting go, shooting the shuppet over the heads of the crowd down the street, fading out of view as his screams faded as well.

"You realize that since he's a ghost, he can't really fall?" Pace deadpanned, internally grateful he could release pursuit. Holding it for that long was beginning to get exhausting.

"Hmm, I must admit you have a point," the kirlia replied, scratching his chin. "A pity. Ah well, thank you for your assistance, citizen," he grinned.

Pace only grunted in response as he walked back to Ioa's side, adjusting his hat. The entire crowd was now cheering for him with varying levels of enthusiasm.

"Smooth, kid!" A carracosta.

"I can't believe I didn't notice that guy!" A grumpig.

"Ooh! Ooh! That was so cool!" "Oh! Oh! Totally!" The marill.

"Show-off," Ioa grinned, bapping him on the shoulder.

Pace waved it all off. _This was certainly a good way to leave an impression, wasn't it?_ "Alright folks, show's over," he said. Apparently, this was impossibly cool, as the marill began squealing like fangirls. _Okay, seriously._

"'Show's over'?" the kirlia shouted in mock outrage. "This show's only just beginning!" he said, starting his song back off from where he was interrupted.

"_Living! Go on without a care,  
Living! I'm goin' everywhere,  
Living! Walk along a starry road,  
Living! And let the adventure unfold,  
Living! Don't mind even if I die,  
Living! I'm gonna give it a try,  
Living! I've been living without  
Living!_

_Let's live._

_Living! Is this what you all call  
Living! Now don't be so sure,  
Living! I live, but I just need  
A little bit something more,_

_Living! Can't make me stand still,  
Living! Gotta reach for the sky,  
Living! I live, but I can see  
The whole world flying by,_

_Living!  
Living!  
Living!  
**Living!**"_

The applause was even louder than last time, and coins were showering in. _I suppose I'm to blame for that burst of popularity._ A few cheers were still directed at him. _Yeesh, you guys. I'm already out of the spotlight. Leave me alone, will you?_

Suddenly, Ioa flung a small gold coin into the bucket. Some of the applause died down, but the flareon was already turning away. "Come on, let's move," she said to Tina and Pace, who looked at her in surprise.

The kirlia bent down, picked up the gold coin, and examined it briefly. "Many thanks, madame!" he called out with a wave before shoving it deep into a red bag behind him, not wanting to risk another theft.

"Wow, you really liked that song, didn't you, Sis?" Tina said, padding along after the flareon. "I really liked the parts where he said 'living,' you know?" _Airhead,_ Pace took a pause from boggling over the value of the coin Ioa had tossed to a street performer to think. Yes, the gold coin was less than half the size of the standard silver, but after figuring out the conversion rates, it was still crazy. That coin could've paid their meals two times over!

"Just what were you thinking, tossing over that much money?" he grumbled out loud.

"…I just really liked the song," Ioa eventually answered, a pensive look on her face. "It's really late now, so we ought to hurry to the inn and rest up," she said.

Pace blinked, and ran over the situation in his head. _Okay, Ioa hears a song about getting to really 'live.' She forks over a bunch of cash and gets all thoughtful. Right before the song, she was getting suspicious about me, but… no, now way that can have anything to do with this. What about that corrupted, the Red Tide, was it? Uh oh. It's known for killing some explorers… How did that song go? "Living! Don't mind even if I die, living! I'm gonna give it a try…"_

…

_Kyogre's Tides, _he internally swore_. Please don't be thinking what I think you're thinking._

* * *

EXPOSITION EXPOSITION EXPOSITION music and kickass-ery. Yup, that about sums this chapter up.

Unlike in v2, the songs the kirlia sings are now original, but let me tell you, they aren't easy to write. I think this chapter would've come out a few days earlier if it weren't for them. Still, I'm pleased with the result.

Oh, and have fun playing "Who's That Pokémon?" with the Red Tide.

I thank **I Lov3 Wizardmon**, **Keyon Trials**, **Delinquent Duo**, and **The Bookster** for your reviews. To **I Lov3 Wizardmon**, yes, you could say that this is my version of the PMD world. I kept only the existence of mystery dungeons and exploration teams as a constant, but changed around a lot of other parts to make it a 'realistic' world. And no, don't feel as if you have to read the earlier versions. Actually, I pulled down v1 eariler, but I'm not sure why as of now. I'll probably post it back up at some point. To **Delinquent Duo**, well, you're going to have to send a profile fitting the criteria I gave. Just because I've used Team Lowblow before doesn't mean I'm going to bend rules for them.

Review!


	4. Trust and Tricks

Pace was leaning on the windowsill, staring up at the two of three moons in the sky from under the brim of his hat. The window had been swung open horizontally so Pace could properly let an arm hang out. The autumn air was chilly, but not so much that the two eon sisters would notice in their sleep. Both of them were curled up by each other on a thin, resilient pad on the other end of the inn room. It was a simple room, with a floor of smooth wooden planks and bare walls of similar make. The ceiling was only about six feet high, but when the occupants were only three feet tall, that ended up working out just fine. There was a single light bulb on the ceiling, but it was off at the moment. The moons alone gave plenty of light for Pace, and it wasn't as if he was actually _doing_ anything.

He had taken off the leather harness, leaving it in another corner of the room, but he kept the hat on. He was already feeling protective of it. It was strange. He only knew of two definite memories that pertained to him personally, one of them being his name, but the other had nothing to do with the hat. Why then, was it so comforting to keep on at all times? And that was just _one_ of the things that made no sense to him at the moment, the others including issues like, _Why am I missing such an inconveniently specific set of memories?_ Or, _Why is this world entirely different from the one I can remember?_

Actually, on the issue of the latter, there wasn't much of the world he did remember in his memories. He vaguely knew of regions like Hoenn and Kanto, of gym leaders and the abilities of pokémon. Come to think of it, he knew quite about the abilities of pokémon. It had taken him only a second to figure out how to force water from his paw to use brine for the first time. He had recognized the attack the beautifly were about to use and reacted before they even began. Perhaps he had been a trainer or a researcher before?

_Questions, questions, questions,_ he silently grumbled. _And not a single answer in sight. It's like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle without the box, while you're missing half the pieces to boot._ There was movement behind him.

"You still up, champ?" Ioa asked, padding up to the window by him.

"Hn," he grunted, scooting to the side a bit. The flareon took the empty space by him and leaned her front legs on the windowsill. Like him, she'd removed the leather armor, but kept on the bandanna.

They stayed like this for a while, staring up at the starry sky, not quite blotted out by the light of the city. The view from this room was quite nice. It was three stories up, and no taller buildings that might block the view stood in front of it, so the entire town up to the faint, distant town wall could be seen. At least, what could be seen by the various lights and around some of the larger trees. "Selene and Luna sure are pretty, aren't they?"

"Selene and Luna?" he asked, looking at her.

"That's the name of those two moons. They're always together in the sky, because they keep orbiting each other. If you can't see one, then it's probably behind the other," she explained. "There's also Artemis, which was there earlier this evening. It's always nice when you get to see all three of them at the same time. In about a week, they'll be on opposite sides of the world." _Well that must be screwy for the tides._

Pace looked back at the two moons. Selene and Luna seemed to be about the same size, if smaller than the moon he remembered, but neither seemed to be completely spherical, from what he could tell. Right now, both were nearly full, enough to see a few lopsided qualities. Artemis, if he remembered right, also seemed to be a similar size, but was clearly irregular, even though only a crescent was visible. "Does the state of the moons have anything to do with that disaster you mentioned?" he asked.

Ioa thought about this, twitching her ears. "Actually, it does. I heard that whatever that disaster was also split apart the moon, so once upon a time, there was only one moon in the sky. Can you imagine?"

"…" _Yes._

She continued. "There was also this huge meteor shower, because the moon didn't really break cleanly, and a bunch of the bigger pieces survived the landing, so we have a bunch of craters and mountains made entirely of moon-rock. There's a big one in the Rock Region; some ancient tribe built an entire city into it that's still intact today. I've heard that it's really beautiful. Maybe we'll go there some time." _Oh good, you're not entirely suicidal. _Pace paused and thought about what she said a little more.

"So I'm already part of your 'we'?" he asked.

"If you want to be," Ioa smiled.

"You're quite trusting, aren't you?"

"Or maybe you're not trusting enough?" she shot back on the fly.

"I like to think naïveté is a negative quality."

She snorted. "So," she said, turning to face him, "does that mean you don't trust me?"

"Aren't you direct?" he asked dryly. She didn't respond, but continued waiting for his answer. He let out a sigh and adjusted his hat. After a while, he said, "I think you've proven yourself to the point that I can trust you to watch my back for as long as I watch yours." She looked like she was about to make some indignant response, but he continued on. "The question is, can I trust you not to run off on some suicide mission?"

She frowned. "Was it that obvious?"

_Confirmed._ "I'm going to throttle that kirlia," he grumbled out loud.

This actually made her laugh. "Hey, hey, don't kill the messenger," she said. "One, 'suicide' isn't a foregone conclusion. Just because it killed _some_ people doesn't mean it can kill us. Two, I'm not even entirely sure if I'm actually going to."

"Good, that's a sign that you still value life."

She laughed again._ If I think she's pretty like that, does that count as poképhilia?_ "Are you doing that on purpose?"

"What, making valid remarks that you happen to find intensely amusing?"

"I'll take that as a yes."

"Hn."

There was more silence as the two continued looking at the sky.

"Do you trust _me_?" Pace suddenly asked.

"Huh?" This surprised Ioa.

"You asked if I trusted you, so I'm asking you in turn."

She thought about this, but didn't take as long as he had. "I want to trust you," she said. "You're smart, you're serious, you're snarky, you're grumpy– you begin to appreciate all that after spending too much time with Tina. I've only met you this evening, but you're already making life more interesting. Because of all that, I want to trust you, but you're keeping too many secrets for my liking."

"…So if I can entertain you more, I can convince you not to go on that suicide mission?"

She almost laughed again, but restrained herself. "Don't change the subject."

"What subject?"

"Your secrets. I really doubt you're faking your amnesia, but if so, what secrets can you be keeping, and why?"

_She's sharp, that's for sure_. "They're nothing really important."

"If they aren't important, what's the harm in telling me?"

"I said, they're not important," he growled out, his voice turning icy. _Take a hint, girl._

"Don't be ridiculous," Ioa said, all lightheartedness forgotten. It was almost funny how quickly they had turned from being open and snarky to this. "You know more than you're letting on. You have some idea about where you're from, but you're afraid to say it. Why?"

Pace said nothing, but only glared at her. Ioa matched it. At least, she tried to, but after a while of the silent staring contest, she eventually backed down and looked away. "So much for trust," she grumbled. _Yes, this conversation went downhill quite quickly, didn't it?_

He stepped away from the window and to a smaller pad besides the sisters' one. "Good night," he said shortly, and (after a moment of trying to figure out how he was supposed to sleep) curled himself up. It occurred to him to only stay half-asleep, as per his paranoia, but it had been a long day. He went out like a light.

* * *

"…"

"…_! You–!"_

"…"

"_What are you doing here?"_

"… _I don't know."_

* * *

Ioa glanced back at Pace as they walked through the street. He seemed to be glancing around the town, still taking it all in. She looked back ahead, but sometimes, she wasn't sure if he was staring at the back of her head whenever she wasn't looking. Ugh, mind games. She hated mind games.

They hadn't spoken much since the argument last night. The early sun shining directly into the window had waked them up and prompted them to drag themselves downstairs (Herself and Pace, that is. Tina was much more of a morning person, and had happily bounced ahead the entire way.), where the inn was serving up breakfast. They all had pancakes, which she noticed Pace ate more readily than yesterday's berry wrap, and then they all set out onto the streets towards the sheriff's office.

The entire time, she and Pace had never said much more than the required curt acknowledgments of each other's presence. Tina, of course, was completely oblivious to the chilly atmosphere, and was as cheerful and talkative as ever, pointing out inane matters like the cloudy weather, the smells wafting from that store, the weird clothes that heracross was wearing. At times, Ioa thought it would be nice to be able to remain so blissfully ignorant – to be able to trust others without being held back by little matters like secrets.

She really _did _want to trust Pace. Ever since they discovered they had the touch, she and her sister ventured away from their home village back in the Rock Region, which had little need for explorers, and began wandering the country. It was a life of adventure, drifting through forests, deserts, mountains, plains, and all the mystery dungeons they offered. But, it was lonely. They never wound up staying at one place for long enough to make lasting attachments. Sure, she had her sister, but Tina wasn't exactly available for intelligent conversation most of the time. She hoped to join a guild someday, to be surrounded by other explorers like her, but that was just that – a hope. For now, she would've been content to find another explorer companion.

And then they found Pace. At first, she thought the buizel was just an oddball, another victim of the mystery dungeon to rescue. When she learned he had the touch, _well_. She had been beside herself with joy, to put it mildly. He was skilled, he was sharp… he was a guy… She was even happy with that deadpan attitude and his neutral scowl-ly expression. And with amnesia, what did he have holding him back from joining her and Tina? It was as if a jirachi had overheard her wishes and granted them without question. She wanted to believe that, but…

It all came back to those secrets. She returned to town, new party member in tow, only to learn that a vicious killer corrupted had popped up in the very mystery dungeon they had just left. It was unnerving, to say the least. She wanted to trust him. There was that word again: she _wanted_. She wanted another companion, she wanted the buizel to be him, she wanted Pace to be trustworthy. She could want all she wanted to, but at the same time, she didn't believe in free gifts.

"Ooh, here we are!" Tina's voice jolted Ioa out of her thoughts, and she stopped in front of the building labeled by a sign, displaying the words, _Sheriff of Jigsaw_. Pace was somewhere between shocked, bewildered, and impressed. Ioa didn't blame him. It was, after all, a giant tree. She wasn't sure about the who, the how, or the why, but the what was right in front of them. In front of them seemed to be a massive evergreen, a redwood if she knew her trees, that had been artificially bloated near the base, but a rectangular stone building still shoved its way through the bark in a few places. Windows of various sizes and shapes decorated the tree bark from base to a point about thirty meters up, where a platform could be seen. After that point, the tree thinned out significantly. In total, the tree was a whopping eighty meters high, and was the only tree of its kind around these parts, as far as she knew.

She walked up to the large double doors under the sign, with different segments for pokémon of different sizes. "Well, then, let's go in," she said, shoving one open. Tina skipped in, and Pace was grumbling something about "can't believe I never noticed…"

Inside was a large lounge, maybe taking up half the ground floor. The outer walls were made of tan stone blocks, but the inner walls were smoothly carved into the very wood of the tree. The windows here weren't that big, so most of the light came from a large oval light on the ceiling. On one side of the room, where the center of the tree would be, was a thick column of wood, where a bulletin board with several job requests pinned to it. Several other rescue teams sat around various wooden benches and tables, also seemingly carved from the tree, or just standing by each other, talking amongst themselves. The opened door hardly got a glance. There was quite a troubled air, naturally, considering the news of the Red Tide. She could recognize Team Fortitude, composed of a munchlax, a makuhita, and a darmanitan; Team Hailers, with three ice-types and a glameow; and there was that kirlia bard from yesterday… wait, what?

Yeah, that was unmistakably him, guitar-free, seated with a much bigger group. They seemed oddly impatient, tapping feet restlessly and the like, rather than nervous like most of the other teams here. Huh, that bard was an explorer? She wouldn't have guessed. Come to think of it, she had noticed this group here the previous morning, because of… yes, there was the shaymin. He had just jumped into the air and started flying in circles. That wasn't something she saw everyday. Ioa had only seen maybe four shaymin in her life before this one?

Tina, meanwhile, had already noticed and was trotting over. Typical. "Hello!" she called cheerfully as she walked right up to him.

The kirlia turned to her in surprise, along with everyone else at that table. "Erm, yes, hello?"

"I remember you playing that song yesterday!" she continued. "It was really cool! I wanted to listen more, but Sis was going away and I had to follow her. I want to hear more of your songs! Can you play some more?"

By this time, the kirlia seemed to have recognized her by Ioa and Pace. "Ah yes, now I recall. I apologize, but my performances are reserved for after sundown, and no tip will alter my mind," he said with a wink to Ioa.

"Oh, so they're the buizel and the flareon you told us about, Valas?" the shaymin asked, floating down before she could respond. "…Um, is there a problem?"

Ioa looked back at Pace and noticed that he was glaring holes into bard, who seemed to be getting unnerved by it. "Nothing. Important," the buizel ground out from between gritted fangs.

"…Yes, I can see that," the kirlia said, edging away from him. Ioa might've laughed at this, but she remembered she was supposed to be mad at Pace. He turned to the more pleasant members of the trio. "Moving on, I have regrettably yet to introduce myself." He stood up and gave a very gentlemanly bow, complete with a wrist flourish. Funny, usually only aristocrats did that sort of thing, not traveling bards. "The name is Valas, all-around artist."

"Ioa," she introduced herself, "Tina, and Pace, traveling explorers, as you might guess. Actually, just Tina and me. Pace is undecided, for now."

"Hn."

"I see," Valas nodded. He was about to say more, maybe to introduce his group, but a loud voice began an announcement from one end of the room, interrupting all existing chatter.

"Attention all exploration teams!" The golbat announced, sitting atop a perch sticking out of the top of the mission board. "As you have all no doubt been informed, an extremely dangerous corrupted has been reported in Jigsaw Sky. The corrupted in question–"

"Hold on!" A ludicolo suddenly shouted, standing up. "Isn't the sheriff usually the one to announce these kinds of things?" These brought on a few affirmative mutterings from the crowd. He was right. Typically, the sheriff himself would come out make reports this important.

"The sheriff is busy with communications at the moment!" the golbat explained over the grumbles. "As I was saying…" She unrolled a paper she had been holding in one claw, revealing a wanted poster with some indeterminate sketch on it. "The corrupted is a wandering corrupted known as the Red Tide, and is considered a rank-1 threat. Yesterday, at approximately 1500 hours, it attacked all three members of Team Swiftwind, who had been reported to the infirmary immediately on return. Fortunately, no other teams were reported missing since the alert, and no nocturnal teams have gone out either."

"Tell us something we don't know!" Ioa didn't see who it was this time.

The golbat continued as if she hadn't heard anything. "We've received a full profile concerning the Red Tide. It was first spotted in Kyogre's Maw, a mystery dungeon in the southern side of the Ice Region, roughly ten months ago." Ioa frowned. She had hoped that was an exaggeration from the guard, but apparently it wasn't that much of one. "Since then, it has flitted from dungeon to dungeon at random, appearing for less than a week at a time, and disappearing for spans of time lasting from a week to a month. Details of the Red Tide are sketchy, despite its long record. It is not even determined whether it's a buizel or a floatzel."

A buizel. She grimaced, half-expecting to hear that, despite how little she wanted to. She briefly glanced at Pace, but was unable to see more than a narrowing of the eyes. She hoped that glance had gone unnoticed, but she wouldn't put it past him to have caught her anyways. No one else really gave him any similar glances. After all, who would suspect a corrupted sitting in the middle of a town not trying to claw someone's eyes out?

"It's only been confirmed that despite definitely being a water-type, it covers itself in layers of ice stylized much like a skeleton, and is capable of forming weapons from ice as well."

"Ice?" the makuhita from Team Fortitude shouted. "Just ice? What's so dangerous about that? Anyone could shatter that with a solid hit!" As if to emphasize his point, he gave the air a few swift jabs.

"We aren't all fighting-types," the golbat reminded him. "Furthermore, the ice the Red Tide produces is unusually hard. Several attempts have been made to break the armor, but they never accomplished more than cracks. It's also too opaque to identify many features, one reason its gone on unidentified. And those aren't its only weapons. It's fast. Very fast. You know what it did to Team Swiftwind, Jigsaw's specialized speed team. To have been able to injure all of them without one escaping is a testament to its ability. That's another reason it's never been identified; it never stays still for long enough for anyone to do so.

"Are the rumors about it true?" a houndour asked. "That's it killed explorers before?"

The golbat hesitated, but eventually answered, "Yes, there have been deaths linked to the Red Tide." The lounge was now milling with anxiety. No wonder, a rank-1 corrupted with a record of dead explorers under its claws right outside their walls? "Most of these casualties are smaller pokémon who bled to death before help arrived. It seems that the Red Tide takes pleasure in… dragging out its kills by inflicting severe, but not immediately fatal wounds." The golbat curled her lip with distaste. Even a pokémon known for blood-sucking was repulsed. That spoke volumes.

Everyone in the room was now muttering with fear, or in some cases, anger. "Well what are we waiting for?" the darmanitan shouted, looking around the room. "Let's get out there and finish that monster, and get some revenge for the dead explorers!" This got a wave of approval.

"In case you have forgotten, the Red Tide is a rank-1 threat! We will only allow rank-A teams and above in Jigsaw Sky now. Rank-B and below will have no choice but to wait a week before going there or it is confirmed that the Red Tide is no longer a danger."

"What? But what will we do then? Go to Crumbling Woods?" "Yeah, there's still missions in Jigsaw Sky, missing citizens to rescue and logging crews to escort!"

"The Rank-A teams will have to accomplish them all on their own. It is too dangerous for anyone else."

The entire room was in turmoil. Ioa realized that it was now or never. She suddenly brought a paw up and shoved Pace forward. "What are you–?" She ignored him and began using her body to push him up to mission board as he garbled out more protests.

The golbat paused its explanations to peer down at her. Once they were close enough, Ioa gave him one last shove. "Do you think he's the Red Tide?"

"WHAT?" Pace whipped around to face her. "Are you insane?"

The golbat's expression was struck by shock, and hers wasn't the only one. The commotion was quickly gathering attention from all the explorers. Perfect.

"Let's go over the facts," Ioa said calmly, loud enough to be heard through the entire lounge, despite the blood pounding in her ears. She didn't want to do this. She felt horrible, as if she was stabbing Pace in the back. Tina and the kirlia, Valas, in the corner of her eye, looked particularly stricken. But she couldn't let shame and guilt overwhelm her now; it was too late to turn back. "Yesterday afternoon, Team Swiftwind are brutally attacked by the enigmatic corrupted the Red Tide, who may be a buizel. Only hours later, Tina and I find you stumbling around the same mystery dungeon with a suspicious case of amnesia. No more appearances are reported since bringing you back."

"You can't be serious!" the golbat cried out. "How can he possibly be a corrupted? I mean, for one, he seems quite sane to me!"

"I'm not claiming to know how he was un-corrupted, but all the evidence points to it." Ioa started circling Pace, looking all across his body – except for his face. "Your fur's all ragged, you're frankly scrawny, its obvious you've been out in the wild for ages. Yet, you hardly have any old scars. Recall that the Red Tide wore armor that had never been penetrated. Your fur is also pretty long for a buizel, evidence you come from the south, it gets pretty cold down there. You can read a navigator in less than a second. You have a stronger touch than I've ever seen before; so strong, it's unnatural. I ask, who could better navigate a mystery dungeon than a corrupted?" The audience was now grumbling loudly, half at her load of nonsense, and half that she had some good points. Good, that meant they didn't notice how close her voice got to breaking a few times.

"I woke up at dusk two nights ago," Pace shot back. "I haven't been conscious the entire time, but I know that I wasn't attacking any explorers yesterday afternoon.

"So you say," Ioa said. "Yet, we only have your word for it." The buizel was seething, but he didn't argue further. Funny that he didn't point out the other hole in her reasoning: his torn-up collar certainly counted as an old scar. "Furthermore, there's the very circumstances of your appearance: after all, we only found you yesterday, yet there have been no buizel reported missing from Jigsaw or any of the nearby towns in the last two weeks." She thought she saw Tina wince, but she went on. "So where did you come from? The sky? Unless you were the Red Tide."

"The records aren't perfect," the golbat said weakly. "We can't keep track of every pokémon out there, you know."

"Nevertheless, It all adds up. Furthermore–OW! Hey!" Pace yanked her by the ear and began dragging her towards the doors. This inspired a fresh wave of shocked noises, but he ignored them. No one moved to stop them, and Ioa herself only half-resisted as she was tugged outside, through the morning crowds of the street, and into a nearby alley between two brick walls, where Pace finally let go and began glaring at her anew. "…Just the facts," she muttered, dusting herself off.

"This is about last night, isn't it?" he said accusingly. "I wouldn't let up on my secrets, so you're trying to goad me into spilling my guts by pressuring me in public!"

"I wouldn't have to if you just told me!" she shouted, not caring that anyone could hear her. Her fur began to flare up, glowing and flickering. She was sick of trying to bottle up her anger, her fears, her dread. "I want to trust you, I really do! But as long as you might be the Red Tide–!"

"You don't believe that. You're not _that _good an actor," he snapped.

Just with that, Ioa quailed, her fire dimming. She wasn't sure if that was a bluff or not, but he hit quite close. "Everything points to it, though…" she muttered half-heartedly.

Suddenly, Tina. "Sis! Is it true? Is he really–?"

Ioa looked up at her, and sighed. "I don't know."

"Then – you were lying?" The leafeon looked as if she were nearly in tears. "Why were you so mean to Pace? Isn't he our friend?" Pace blinked at this. "You shouldn't say such mean things about friends!"

"I'm sorry, Tina–"

"Don't be sorry to me!" she huffed. "Be sorry to Pace! You were being mean to him, not me!"

Honestly? Tina of all people was scolding her? Yet, she couldn't deny her sister's words. She sighed again, looking down at the buizel's feet. "I'm sorry, Pace. I really don't –"

The buizel held a paw up, interrupting her for the fourth time. "Fine, I'll spill. Just keep quiet about this. Both of you." He snapped that looking sharply at Tina. The leafeon mimed zipping her mouth cheerfully. Ioa, meanwhile, could hardly believe it. He was really going to tell them that easily? Well, not that easily, but still. He hesitated, trying to find a way to word it. "As I said, I woke up at dusk two days ago."

"Hold on," said Ioa. "I really shouldn't be interrupting, but if you were around for two nights, why were you so surprised by the moons on the second night? Didn't you see them the first night?"

"It was cloudy that night. It's not as if the sky is always either clear or raining," he pointed out. "And besides, you had to be there to narrate for me."

"That's true."

Tina spoke up. "In case you're wondering, yes, we _did_ just break the fourth wall."

"Moving on," Pace said. "When I woke up, I only had two memories about myself. The first was my name. The second was…" He hesitated for a brief moment, and let out a breath. "…Was that I was a human."

Ioa blinked. That was… unexpected, to say the least. Before she could say anything, Pace held up his paw again. "Let me finish. All my other memories were about a world completely different from this one. One where humans were dominant, and pokémon weren't – well, intelligent on the same level as they are here. Where there were no mystery dungeons or ancient cataclysms. Where there was only one freaking moon. I have no idea whatsoever how I got from there to here, but those are the facts."

Ioa thought carefully before responding. Yet, all she could think to say was, "Are you messing my fur?" He gave her a 'do-I-look-like-a-fur-messing-guy?' look. "Ah." She looked down. Tina was saying something, but Ioa was too busy trying to wrap her head around it to really listen. That was the secret? That he thought he was from another world? That was the secret he was hiding, the secret that kept her from trusting him, the secret that she did all that to try to make him talk…

"_That's it?_" she nearly screamed, cutting off one of Tina's questions. "_That_ was the secret you were hiding all along?" Her fur blazed wildly, mirroring her anger.

"Announce it to the world, will you?" Pace muttered, rubbing his aching ears.

"I can't believe–! You seriously–? I ought to–" she didn't even know what she was saying. She began pawing about in circles, at least as well as she could in the small alley. It was just so damned fur-ripping _frustrating_! That was it! That was the secret! She just– just– Augh! "Why is that even a secret?" she finally choked out.

"Oh, should I've just told you, 'By the way, I remember being a human in some alternate world, even though I'm a buizel! You have to believe me! I'm definitely not crazy, no-sir-ee!'?" he said in a mockingly high-pitched voice. "How well do you think _that_ would've gone over?"

"Okay, point," she admitted. "But _still_." She sighed, the fire going out, and her entire body sagged. "Now I feel even worse," she muttered, looking down. "I thought I couldn't trust you, because I was afraid that secret might've had something to do with the Red Tide. It looks like I put both of us through all that pressure for nothing. I'm sorry."

Tina smiled at her, while Pace looked at her for a moment. "I'm not going to deny that I'm pissed," he said, "but I suppose I can understand where you're coming from." His ever-present scowl lightened by a fraction, and he held out his paw again, but this time, reached out to her. Ioa looked up at his paw, then at his face, and, hesitantly, raised her paw to his. He grasped it and gave a firm, quick shake. "That's a human thing, isn't it? Shaking hands?" she asked weakly, lowering her paw. "Or paws, in our case."

"Hn." He glanced at Tina. "So… friends?" he asked, raising a brow. (It wasn't easy to see under the hat.)

"Well, yeah," she said. "Of course! Why wouldn't you be our friend? You're on our team, right?"

"I don't recall ever actually accepting the invitation."

"Well, it still stands," Ioa said. "Like I said last night, you can be part of our 'we' if you want to." She smiled hopefully.

"Hn." Pace turned and began to walk away. "Let's go back and make sure you didn't completely trash my reputation," he said, stepping back into the crowded street.

She let herself laugh, albeit nervously, and followed him along with Tina. They made it up to the door when Pace swung it open, paused, and suddenly slammed it shut. This didn't have the intended effect, as the doors swung both ways, so he only wound up looking foolish backing out of their range when they swung back towards him. After that, he turned and scrunched his face up as if he was internally beating himself up.

"Um, what's up?" Ioa asked, utterly bewildered.

"Stupid, shouldn't have assumed…" he grumbled under his breath, rubbing his face in his paws.

"Huh?" asked Tina.

"…I believe I just saw the sheriff," he eventually said to the sisters.

Tina was confused. Ioa was too for a moment, trying to figure out what that was supposed to mean, then it suddenly hit her. Of course! He hadn't seen a single one since his amnesia, and if he was telling the truth (Ioa wasn't completely sold out on the existence of another world, but she could believe that's what he simply remembered), there were plenty of them where he had come from. Of course he might assume there weren't any until now.

"Ha!" she laughed loudly. "Looks like you slipped up there!" She walked by him and shoved open the door. Inside, the sheriff stood tall by the mission board, towering over many of the pokémon in the room. The dark brown cowboy hat, the tamed honchkrow perched an outstretched arm, and the gleaming gold shield-shaped badge on his trench coat all contributed to his air of authority, and that was without counting his very species. He seemed to be talking to the golbat and a pansage wrapped in a few bandages, the one who must've been on Team Swiftwind. The sheriff looked over in her direction just as Pace and Tina walked inside after her.

"So, this is our 'Red Tide'?" the human asked, looking at Pace.

* * *

/trollface

I believe I can claim credit as the only writer with the sheer audacity to include humans in the flesh in a PMD setting, since I used the concept back in v1, like two years ago. Feel free to inform me if you can claim otherwise.

Hmm, Ioa's character and motivations developed quite quickly this chapter. I was wondering if I should've dragged it out a bit more, but this will do. Oh, and Tina, in her childish glory, makes herself useful, if slightly. That's an accomplishment.

Once upon a time, back when I was reading only Naruto fanfics, I thought 2,000 words was a good target for a nice, decent-length chapter. Currently, I'm averaging 5,000+ words per chapter. Ah, youth.

I thank **The Bookster**, **Keyon Trials**, and **Something dictionary related** for your reviews. Although, only three reviews for my third chapter? I'm… kind of depressed. I'll just go a slink in some corner somewhere… Yeah…

Reviews chase away emo urges!


	5. Filling in the Blanks

"So, this is our 'Red Tide'?" the human asked, looking at Pace.

Pace, in turn, glared back at him, keeping a tight rein on his composure. He'd just wound up going from a world of humans to a world of pokémon, and a human was _not_ something he was expecting to see. Obviously, in this world, something happened to accelerate the mental growth of pokémon to the same level as that of humans, or maybe slightly less. After all, this human was the sheriff of a town populated by pokémon, and Pace had a feeling that he didn't get that position by coincidence. In a society where many of its members could shatter rows of bricks all day for fun, it stood to reason that humans here had something else that kept them ahead.

The human seemed to be in his late-ish thirties, judging by the few visible wrinkles and grey hairs visible under the hat. He had a rugged face that might be handsome to some, but this didn't seem to be the era of the safety razor, as he had quite a bit of rough stubble across his chin. And as for the honchkrow on his arm, there was something odd about him. He didn't seem to have that same brightness of the eye everyone else had. _Could it be…?_

His gaze turned to the pansage, who must've been one of the members of Team Swiftwind, judging by his injuries. He had several bandages over his body, including a gauze over his forehead, a wrapping around his chest, and even an arm sling, though he wasn't using it. Pace would've expected him to be a bit more forlorn, considering the situation, but he seemed more restless and indignant than anything else.

"We'll see," Pace said in response to the sheriff. "You, pansage, what's your name?"

"Theed," he replied with a challenging look. _Theed? Ye gods, what possessed his parents to name him that?_

"So, Theed, the Red Tide attacked your team yesterday?" A nod. "Did the it look anything like me?"

"Definitely not. I saw it clearly. It was a floatzel."

Behind him, he could hear Ioa let out an audible sigh of relief, but something was bothering him. He pressed on. "How can you be sure?"

"It was two times taller than me," he said without hesitation.

"That's all?"

"I saw the float; it went all around its body."

"You saw this under the ice armor?"

"Yeah, it didn't completely cover him."

"Describe the armor."

"Well, the surface of it looked really scratched, so you couldn't see much through it. And it looked a lot like a skeleton."

"Elaborate."

"There was a big skull over its head, with holes over the nose, and some for the eyes, so…"

"So it looked much like a real, bare skull?"

"I guess. I could draw a picture."

"Do that later. Continue."

"There were also these ribs sticking out…"

This rapid-fire across-the-room interrogation continued on for a while, and the heads of all the explorers in the room kept turning back and forth between the two of them. Eventually, they were interrupted.

"Are you quite done?" the golbat asked loudly. "We've just been through this already. I think you've made your point: you are certainly not the Red Tide, and no one in here believed that for a second." Ioa winced at that. _I have a feeling she isn't going to be living this down anytime soon._

"Yes," Pace said, "it's evident that I'm not the one he's describing, _but_." He began walking up to the mission board. "You can't deny how convenient it all is. This corrupted, apparently, has been on the run for ten months, appearing and disappearing like a phantom. In those ten months, all the explorers who've fought it have been able to gather this." He was now close enough to gesture at the vague sketch on the wanted poster. "Suddenly, we have enough details from this guy to paint a full-color portrait of the Red Tide."

"Are you calling me a liar?" the pansage shouted angrily. "I saw what I saw, and saw all of that with my own eyes!"

"Then how?" Pace asked, folding his arms behind his back. "How did you uncover more in one day than what dozens if not hundreds of explorers could over ten months?" In that silence, he became aware of the greater silence stretched across the room. Odd, he was expecting some muttering.

"…Hang on," the pansage said. "You were put up to this, weren't you?"

Pace blinked. "Eh?"

"Sheriff was just asking me the same thing when you came in!"

This was a surprise. He looked around. No one in the room was denying it, but they were now whispering with a certain degree of shock. Ioa and Tina looked just as thrown off as he was.

Pace looked at the sheriff expectantly. The human nodded. "Yeah, you practically took the words right out of my mouth." He whispered something to the honchkrow and shook his arm slightly. The bird pokémon suddenly took off, flapping out an open window without a word. _Yes, that seems to be the case. Troubling…_ The human stretched his arm, swinging it about, before continuing. "You weren't listening outside the door by any chance, were you?"

"Of course not," Pace growled, crossing his arms. "I was busy having a… debate with my teammates." He heard a gasp behind him. _Yes, Ioa, I called you and Tina teammates. Now please hold off your celebrations._

"So what do you believe is the case?" he asked, walking over to a table and sitting on it. The team already there didn't seem to mind very much, making room for him respectably.

"I'll need a bit more information. How trustworthy is this guy?"

"Hey! I told you, I saw what I saw!"

"I don't let any teams I don't find trustworthy operate in this town," he replied, ignoring the pansage.

"What about the other two who were attacked? The farfetch'd and the swablu?"

"They haven't regained consciousness yet, and even when they do, Doctor Sewond probably won't let anyone see them for another few hours."

"He just barely let me come here when Sheriff sent Dusk out for me," the pansage grumbled.

"So you trust that he really did see all that?" Pace asked. ("Stop ignoring me!")

"Netters and Til maybe bird pokémon, but Theed has fearow eyes of the three. Why do you think he's on the search-and-rescue team?" the sheriff said.

"Yeah, and it was the middle of the day!"

"So obviously, there has never been anyone with your eyesight to spot the real Red Tide in those seeing conditions?" Pace pointed out.

"Well…"

"Hang on!" someone shouted. It was a monferno at the kirlia's table. "Are you saying that this Red Tide might be –?"

"A fake?" the sheriff finished for him. "Yes, that may very well be the case."

"No way!" the pansage shouted. "It can't have been fake! What other pokémon runs around wearing an icy skeleton?"

"A faker, perhaps?" Pace deadpanned. "It fits. If the Red Tide has remained such a mystery for so long like you all say, why would it suddenly break its pattern? Unless it's not the Red Tide at all."

"You mean the one that sent Team Swiftwind to the infirmary and panicked everyone is just a low-life, dirty little _prankster?_" the darmanitan bellowed, his eyebrows blazing in indignation. "Grrrrrrr! Now I really want to pummel that chump!" This sentiment was echoed throughout the room.

"Hold on!" the sheriff called, standing up. The shouting silenced almost instantly. "Before we all go flying off to conclusions, keep in mind that this is a mere possibility. This may just as easily be the genuine article we're facing."

"Then what should we do?" the golbat asked. "How are we supposed to react if we don't even know whether or not this Red Tide is a fake?"

"And that's not the only question: if it _is_ a fake, then who is our faker really and why would he – the Red Tide you saw was male, correct?" A nod. "And why would he fake an attack from the Red Tide? Why go through that effort of carving that get-up out of ice and assaulting an exploration team?"

"Because he – or they – want to keep explorers out of the dungeon," answered Pace. This created fresh wave of shock and outrage. The sheriff seemed surprised, but nodded. He waited for the initial surge to die down before continuing. "Whoever this was must've known Jigsaw doesn't have any rank-1 or greater teams, so by making it seem a rank-1 corrupted is on the loose, he could keep all but the more confident rank-A teams out. The question now is why? What reason does anyone have for isolating Jigsaw Sky?"

The sheriff had sat back down and was now stroking his chin in thought. "They want something in Jigsaw Sky," he eventually said. "And whatever it is, if they didn't make it a mission, they must not want the authorities knowing about it. Therefore, these can only be outlaws searching for some item that's clearly illegal in nature. So they set everything up so that today, and even last night, they had the mystery dungeon all to themselves to search for it…"

"Or perhaps someone's gathering an assault force in the mystery dungeon?" Pace suggested.

The human shook his head, half at him. "You must not know much about mystery dungeons," he said. "A dungeon's a bad place to hold a sizable gathering. You stick more than half a dozen sentients together for too long, and it becomes a beacon for all nearby ferals and corrupted. They might as well bring a marching band of exploud. It's highly unlikely they'd risk it."

"Ah. I'll keep that in mind." _The more you know._

"So someone wants something from within Jigsaw Sky…" he trailed off, rubbing his chin some more. "Claire!"

"Yessir?" the golbat cried out, startled.

"Get to records and see if you can find anything missing that they may be looking for!"

"Yessir! Right away, sir!" she quickly fluttered out the same window as the honchkrow had.

"Anyways," he announced, standing up, "in light of recent developments, I've decided that we can't allow these fakers to go through with what they're attempting, so we won't give them the chance. All teams will be sent out to Jigsaw Sky, with an extra mission: to keep an eye out–"

"No! Wait!" Pace shouted, cutting him off. He was suddenly aware that the entire room had frozen in shock, and that every set of eyes was staring directly at him with mixed expressions. He could see Ioa dying of embarrassment where she was standing, and even Tina looked stunned at him, even more wide-eyed than usual. _What did I do? …Besides cut off the sheriff? Wait, is this because he's sheriff, human, or both?_

"…Yes?" the sheriff asked, looking surprised, but not unpleasantly so. Pace took this as a good sign.

He cleared his throat. "Before you go sending off every team out there, one, here's a better plan of action – only send a few reconnaissance teams out to find and trail the criminals without raising their suspicions. Sure, with your plan, we could prevent them from finding whatever they're looking for, but we'll never know what it may be, and they'll just try again later. With this plan, we'll be able to not only identify the item, but obtain it for ourselves and capture the criminals in one go."

The sheriff considered this, returning to the chin stroking.

"Two," Pace continued, ("there's more?" someone asked incredulously, but quietly.) "Keep in mind that all our speculations are merely that: speculations. All of it is based on the assumption that the level of detail Theed here has gleaned for us is too improbable to be considered coincidence. You can't recklessly decide what to do on such flimsy premises. For all we know, all our initial presumptions may be true and the Red Tide is really out there. And if they _are_ true, well, I don't think I have to comment further."

The sheriff was quiet. Seconds, stretched out like minutes, passed as the room held its breath. Suddenly, he let out a short, barking laugh. "Hah! Well said! You're absolutely right on all accounts. It seems I got too eager there. You know, I really wish there were more pokémon willing to speak back to me like that. But a word of warning to you." He leaned in close to Pace and said quietly, "Not every authority you meet will be as receptive to that kind of talkback as I am."

Pace blinked. _So is it just because he's sheriff or not? I'm still confused._ "Alright, forget those last orders!" the sheriff suddenly announced. "Rank-A teams who feel up to it only! You have two things to watch out for: the outlaws who faked the attack or the Red Tide itself! Team Underlight, you're getting the special recon mission. Find the outlaws, if they exist, and follow them. Don't get cocky and engage them. Remember what our faker managed to do to Team Swiftwind, even if he isn't the Red Tide. Stick around, and I'll distribute some communicators to you. I've got a hunch you'll need them. Team Hailers – ah, Dusk you're back?" he asked as the honchkrow flew back into the window. He held out his arm for the bird to perch on, and grabbed a slip of paper tied to one of the honchkrow's legs. He read it, and suddenly crunched it in his fist.

"Sheriff? What's wrong?" asked the pansage.

"Zekrom's lightning, I don't believe this," he growled out, grinding his fingers around the paper. "We sent out the distress message sixteen hours ago. When we finally get a response, it's that we can expect a team from Guild Claymore to arrive in two days. _Two. Days_." He opened his hand and let the torn scrunches of paper fall to the ground. He let out a sigh, adjusting his hat with his free hand. "Honestly, this is the Red Tide we're dealing with here. Doesn't the national guard know how much of a threat it is?" The honchkrow just seemed to be grooming under its wing or something while this was going on. "Useless louts," he grumbled.

"Excuse me!"

He looked up at the voice. Pace did too, and saw the shaymin from earlier, flying up to the human's eye level. "Yes?" the sheriff asked.

"Just to remind you, you know you've got a guild right here!" His voice was high, just a few pitches short of grating, yet it somehow completely avoided sounding childish in any way, _despite the optimism just _oozing_ off of him._

The sheriff raised an eyebrow. "Ah yes. Guild Joutei, was it?"

"Yup!" the shaymin floated back to the table where the rest his group was, all sitting or standing straight now that they were at the center of attention. "And for the record, you've also got a rank-1 team! Yuzuki! Haru!"

"Hai!" the mawile and monferno shouted together in reply, standing to attention. _Japanese? Or maybe Chinese, I dunno… _At least they looked pretty tough, if young. The mawile was covered in thick, dark metal plates that… seemed to be completely impractical. Pace was no expert on armor, but he was pretty sure that those plates were more liable to weigh her down than offer much protection. There were even a few pieces strapped to her false jaw. _Honestly. And more to the point, why would a steel-type even need armor in the first place?_ Pace would've dismissed the idea of her being a competent fighter if it weren't for the fact that she _was_ called for a rank-1 team, and had a steady confidence in the way she just stood. Something about her just told him she knew what she was doing, so Pace supposed he just had to go along with it.

The monferno was a bit less enigmatic, despite being wrapped up in a thick cloak dyed heavily in browns and greens. Strapped to his back was a wooden staff about his height, tipped with blunt steel. He had a hood bunched-up behind his neck, and was wearing a set what seemed to be thick goggles around his neck. Pace couldn't tell much more, as much of it was hidden under the cloak, but he could tell that if the monferno had both the hood and goggles up, one would have difficulty even telling he _was _a monferno. He was obviously stealth-based, in contrast to the mawile's warrior stereotype… _Wait, don't tell me. They're samurai and ninja. Figures._

"Haru's still only rank-A, but Yuzuki's a rank-1. The three of us will do just fine for dealing with the Red Tide, don't you think?" the shaymin asked, smirking confidently.

The sheriff looked at him. After a while, Pace realized there was some kind of staring contest going on between the two, for whatever reason. "All right then." He said abruptly. "Looks like our might-be fakers made a slight miscalculation when they thought we had no rank-1 teams. I'll leave the Red Tide, if he exists, to you three." _Um, okay. That was relatively short and anti-climatic._ "So once again, all rank-A teams who feel up to it, find some missions and get out there! Everyone else, either take the day off or head off Crumbling Woods."

There were some groans over this. "Crumbling Woods? There's never any useful missions there!" "It's just a big nest of corrupted!" "And it's so far away!"

"Too bad. Toughen up," he told them. "What are you all, explorers or whiners? Don't worry. I've got no doubt our situation will be resolved soon enough. Hah, we probably won't even need that team from Claymore! Screw them if they're late! We'll just take care of this threat without them!" He said this with an upraised fist, bringing a round of cheers from the gathered explorers. "That is all! Dismissed!"

"Right!" "Okay!" "Roger that!" All the explorers in the room, as one, immediately saluted, raising a right hand, foreleg, or whatever as close to their heads as well as they could manage. After that, the room immediately began milling around, mainly centering at the mission board. Several gave Pace acknowledging nods, stares of awe, and several reactions between the extremes.

Pace moved out of their way and made his way to where Ioa and Tina were standing. "Pace! That was really cool!" Tina called out as soon as he was close enough.

"I can't believe it! You talked back to him, a human, and came out on top!" Ioa said just as eagerly.

"So if I didn't speak up, no one would've questioned him?" he asked, frowning.

"Well, someone might've, eventually, but I don't think anyone would've had the guts to interrupt the sheriff right when he was giving out orders! And you managed to keep up with his logic the entire way! You even beat him at it! Ha, if I had any doubts about your…" she furtively looked around. _Yes, very inconspicuous_. "…Memories, then they're all gone. That's the only way you could have managed that so coolly!"

"So pokémon here naturally have difficulty objecting to humans?"

"Well, it's hard to explain. It's like they have this… aura of command, you know what I mean? They get respect from us pokémon by default. They can even tame wild pokémon on their own!" _So the honchkrow really is…?_ "Being leaders just comes naturally to humans." _Aha._

"Hn, at least one thing's constant from my world."

"Hold on, isn't that supposed to be a secret? Don't mention that stuff in public!"

"You trying to shush me's gathering a lot more attention the me just talking, you do realize," Pace deadpanned.

"Oh, that's right, isn't it?" Ioa mumbled, looking down. "Hah, sorry."

Pace's frown deepened as he looked at her. "You aren't thinking of me differently because of that, are you?"

"What?" she blinked at him.

"You've been acting way too submissive since my revelation," he explained. "Are you suddenly thinking of me as a superior in the same way as him?" He gestured over to the sheriff, who seemed to be talking to Theed again. The honchkrow was nowhere to be seen.

"What? No! Of course not!" said Ioa hurriedly.

"…"

"…Okay, maybe a little. But besides that!" she protested. "I really _was _sorry for accusing you, and then even after what I did, you still called us teammates in front of everyone… did you really mean that?"

Pace was silent for a moment. "Just so that we're clear, if I say 'yes', I'll be subjecting myself to service in your exploration team for an indeterminate amount of time, traveling across the land for the purpose of finding more places where I can go risk my neck on a daily basis, accomplishing hazardous missions by navigating centers of mind-altering chaos for income?"

Ioa blinked. Then, she started laughing. It was a different laugh from the ones of last night. This one held nothing back, and Pace could almost see all of her built-up anxiety just evaporating in that laughter. "So you _are_ doing that on purpose!" she managed to choke out before descending back into hysterics.

"There we go. Good to have you back," he smirked. He waited for her to calm down before continuing. "Fine then. I owe you that much. Yes, I meant it when I called you teammates. On one condition!" he suddenly said before she could cheer. "Change the team name. I'm not going to sink so low as to serve a narcissist." This brought a few chuckles, but they were being overwhelmed by… "Oh come on, don't start–!"

"Shut up! I'm not crying!" Ioa shouted, rubbing her eyes with one foreleg. "Like I'm going to get all emotional over such a little – oh who am I kidding? THANK YOU!" She suddenly tackled Pace to the ground and started nuzzling him. Hard.

"Hey! Let go, damn it! I didn't sign up for this!" he protested, trying to wiggle away.

"Ooh! Are we hugging?" Tina asked, her attention suddenly snapping back from wherever it went.

"Oh no, don't you even dare–"

"YAY! Group hug!" She dove in as well, moving into the other side of him from Ioa.

"BY RAYQUAZA'S THUNDER, IF YOU TWO DON'T GET OFF ME THIS INSTANT, SOMEONE'S THROAT IS GOING TO GET RIPPED OUT AND IT WON'T BE MINE!"

* * *

"Well aren't they just lively?" Valas the kirlia smirked, looking at flailing mass of fur and paws.

"Hah hah, they really are interesting, aren't they?" the shaymin said, sitting back down on the table. "What do you guys think of them?" Some other explorers surrounded the team, unsure of what to do.

"That buizel…" the dratini mumbled quietly. "He was really brave to argue with the sheriff…" A few more shouted threats made their way into the air.

"And he's quite intelligent," the larvitar said. "While I don't doubt that the sheriff would've figured everything out and realized his error eventually, I didn't think anyone else would've dared think the Red Tide might be fake, and yet; not only did he do so on his own, but he surpassed the sheriff's line of reasoning." A munchlax had tried to step in, but had been kicked out violently.

"What about the other two?" the sableye asked. "Apparently, they've only met yesterday, yet, they've already grown that close. Chance must've had a hand in this, don't you think?" A few more explorers moved in at the same time, finally dragging them apart.

"The flareon was very rude," Yuzuki the mawile muttered. She followed up with another stream of Japanese. The flareon in question and the leafeon were still laughing as they were pulled away.

"She said that it was dishonorable to accuse her companion so wildly like that," Harutomaru (or Haru, as he was more often called) the monferno translated automatically for the rest of the guild. "But, you know, it looks like they did make up, so that has to count for something," he added. The buizel had finally stopped thrashing in the grip of the darmanitan holding him and had settled for glaring.

"That just leaves the leafeon," the larvitar said.

"Yes, she was a very enthusiastic type, no?" Yuzuki mused.

"Strikes me as a simpleton," Valas shrugged. "Not to imply that's a bad thing. Every blossom has a different scent, after all."

"Do– Do you think that buizel really has amnesia like they said?" the dratini asked hesitantly.

"I think that's a safe bet," said the sableye. "After all, he didn't know the Rule of Six."

"They're a pretty interesting team, don't you think?" Jaden smiled.

"Chief, are you thinking of…?"

"Yes I am, Hobbes."

"It's not Hobbes, it's Obsidian," the sableye growled back.

"I wonder…" the drifloon suddenly said in a dream-like voice. "Does it matter where a cloud is from?"

Everyone stared up at him for a moment, then they all turned to Valas. "Hey, don't look at me," he said, holding up his hands. "I'm absolutely clueless on what that one meant."

"You write poetry," the larvitar pointed out.

"Some experience does not a master interpreter make."

"Well, whatever! That's enough sitting around talking!" the shaymin suddenly said, floating into the air. "Yuzuki, Haru, and I will focus on finding the Red Tide and bringing it to justice! Clay and Valas, you take Tadayo with you and take some normal missions!"

"What?" Valas asked. "But you know I don't have the touch!"

"You'll be fine," the larvitar told him. "You're still a good fighter, and we'll need that more than another touch."

"Right! And Hobbes–!"

"It's not Hobbes, it's Obsidian."

"And Lyn, sorry, but you two will have to stay in town for now."

"Aww," the dratini sighed, looking down.

"But, what if the Red Tide is fake?" Haru asked. "What will we do?"

"Then we'll just be wasting our time!" he answered brightly. Cue the facefaults.

* * *

This was a short chapter, wasn't it? Well, the next good cut-off point wouldn't come quite a bit later, and I wanted to post what I had.

A bunch of names were thrown around this chapter, but don't hurt yourself trying to remember them all. If they become important again, I'll reintroduce them. For now, they only work to establish that this world is bigger than the main characters.

Pace lets his smart-ass qualities shine some more. He'll be doing plenty of that.

I had some difficulty developing the sheriff's personality. At first, he ended up being too random, going from cool and calm to fiery and excitable, so he had to be toned down. And another note, the sheriff (who actually has a name, I just never brought it up) is not the only human in this world, in case you thought otherwise. After all, Joutei is a travelling guild, and if there was only one human in the story and he didn't travel with them, then he might as well not exist. Other humans will appear as they will.

Pace does not like it when his personal bubble is invaded.

The scene with Joutei works to excite my old readers and confuse the new ones. Don't worry, as before, you shouldn't feel obligated to memorize characters until you get the okay, which shouldn't be hard to recognize when you see it.

Thanks to **ShadowDragoon32**, **Something dictionary related**, **Book's BROOKLYN RAGE** (I'm serious, please stop changing your name), and **Keyon Trials** for your reviews! Quite a few more reviews than last time. *emo urges averted!* By the way, you're all conspiracy theorists. I'm going to have fun surprising you all. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be watching my story traffic like some no-life slacker with nothing better to do.

Review!


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